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Viewpoint from Roger Hill for 30th August 2013
Roger Hill
Member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
In God's Image
I would like to relate to you a true story from a book called “God’s Little Devotional Book.” In an old Monastery near Bebenhausen, Germany, you can see two pairs of deer horns hanging on the wall. The horns are interlocked. They were found in that position many years ago.
Apparently, two bucks had been fighting for territorial or herd rights, and their horns became jammed together and could not be separated. They died in a fighting position, unable to find a way of co-operating so that on bended knees, both might eat, drink, or eventually free itself from the other.
These locked horns are not unlike many relationships that can be found today in homes, schools factories, offices, and even churches. People become entrenched in their positions and angrily confront those who oppose them. In the process they lock horns and seem unable to ask each other for forgiveness or to find a mutual way of serving one another in love.
Both parties in such a relationship suffer and ultimately lose out. If you are at odds with someone today, go to that person and ask what the two of you might do to reconcile your differences. You may be surprised to find that the other person wants reconciliation as much as you do. This is not an easy thing to do!
As human beings we like to stand on our dignity and hate to lose face. We must not forget how God has led us in the past. When you are forgotten or neglected or purposely taken for granted, rejoice, glorifying for Christ’s sake at the insult or the oversight - that is victory. When you are misunderstood, misinterpreted, misconstrued by your peers, when people slander your good intentions, and you take it all in patient loving silence - that is victory.
When you are entitled to receive honest credit, and someo ne steps in and receives what justly belongs to you, and it makes no difference in your feelings or your service – that is victory. When you can see another preferred before you, and you love them none the less rejoicing in the advancement of even a pretended friend, when not one spot of envy lurks in your heart – that is victory.
When you can endure any interruption, any interference, any inconvenience, any injustice as Jesus endured it – that is victory. When you can love your enemies, think no evil, speak no evil, suffer long, seek not your own – that is victory.
Do not think that this experience is impossible. It is not gained by our efforts, but by the power of Jesus. It does not come by our trying but by our trusting. By His all prevailing grace victory may be gained, for nothing is impossible with God.
May our relationship with Jesus help us to choose carefully not only the words we say, but how we deal with other people!
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