Is the glass half-full or half-empty? Are you positive about people or do you keep a list of their wrongs and  your judgments of them? Do someone who hurt you have to say he is sorry before you will forgive them–is your forgiveness dependent on someone else? Does your forgiveness have strings attached? 

In the first bloom of love, were you able to laugh at idiosyncrasies, but now they drive you crazy? How can I love being with someone who leaves things all over the house and cracks his knuckles continuously? Is your love meted out only to those who stay within the lines you draw? Or can you choose to respond with love? Does you love depend on the other person changing or can you offer love in the way God does to us, “Even while we were yet sinners …”?

I am not advocating being a doormat or submitting to abuse. I’m asking, do you follow Paul’s words in this verse and to respond to others as God responds to you–in love?

 

Colossians 3:13 (New Living Translation)

Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.

 

Colossians 3:13 (The Message)
Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. 

Why study the Bible this way? If you take it into your mind and heart enough to translate it into a picture or word, it becomes part of you. If you add a sentence or two of explanation, you then engage another part of your brain which cements God’s words even firmer into your heart and mind. If you want to remember it, you can think of what  you drew.

Want to share? I invite your comments and an upload of your own drawings.