Get Your Own Straw

Reading Exodus today -- Chapters 5 and 6. Pharoah is ticked. These darn Israelites apparently have too much time on their hands if they want to go off and pay homage to their God. Let's remedy that. Require the same quota of bricks daily, but don't give them any straw. Apparently they have time to get their own straw.

I can't stand injustice. I can't stand misunderstandings. Yet both are prevalent in my life, in yours, in our world. I assumed my hyper sensitivity toward injustice, my distain for those who treat other unjustly was a good, maybe even godly, trait. But here's what Oswald Chambers has to say about it:

Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it.

And then this: Much that we call the trial of our faith is the inevitable result of being alive.

Speaking of justice and injustice. How many times must we forgive someone who sins against us? Seven times? No, 70 times 7...in other words there is no end to the number of times we should forgive. 

In Matthew 18 you can read the the story of the unforgiving servant. Though his own great debt had been forgiven, he was not willing to forgive a much smaller debt from someone else. It did not go well for that man when his master found out that he did not pay it forward. He was thrown back in prison.

The story concludes with Jesus' words, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”