The first thing I did when I got engaged was call my parents and grandparents to tell them the good news. My grandfather — equal parts straight-shooter and comedian — remarked: \u201cWell, that\u2019s pretty good, I guess. I just have one question. Do you like this girl?\u201d<\/p>\n
The question took me off guard. Why else would I have asked her to be my wife? \u201cI love her with all my heart,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He replied, \u201cI didn\u2019t ask you if you loved her. I asked if you liked her. You\u2019re going to be married to her for the rest of your life, and you\u2019re probably going to disagree and argue and fight a lot, so if you\u2019re going to work through conflict, you better really like this girl as a person and a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
He knew a truth about all relationships: conflict happens. Broken relationships often go off track because somebody insists on having something their way. Jacob and Esau are a prime example, but they also show us the key to repairing a broken relationship.<\/p>\n
Jacob was continually grabbing at his brother\u2019s heel. He grabbed Esau\u2019s birthright. He grabbed Esau\u2019s blessing. And if he wasn\u2019t careful, he was going to grab more than he bargained for: \u201cEsau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. And Esau determined in his heart: \u2018The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob\u2019\u201d (Genesis 27:41).<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve ever been let down or injured, if you\u2019ve ever experienced searing anger, then you can relate to the raw emotion Esau expressed toward Jacob. Esau felt his anger was justified, and we often feel the same.<\/p>\n
A relationship that once was a blessing can become broken.<\/p>\n
Twenty years later, Jacob had become a changed man. More than having matured, he had moved forward in repentance and restoration. This required humility. Humility is a needed cure for the sickness of a broken relationship. Thankfully, God had also been at work in Esau\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
In the end, the brothers were able to reconcile because one humbled himself and the other forgave. Either one could have kept up the wall. Both were willing to knock it down. In the same way, it\u2019s up to us to knock down the walls we\u2019ve put up in our lives. We start here:<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve wronged someone, ask forgiveness. If needed, seek to make restitution.<\/p>\n
If someone wronged you, forgive. Period. Even if the offender never apologizes, forgive.<\/p>\n
Our example is Jesus Christ, who came to earth for the very purpose of reconciling us to God and restoring our right standing with God. He forgave all who killed Him, and He forgives us.<\/p>\n
Exercise humility and take the first step. Trust God with the rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first thing I did when I got engaged was call my parents and grandparents to tell them the good news. My grandfather — equal parts straight-shooter and comedian — remarked: \u201cWell, that\u2019s pretty good, I guess. I just have one question. Do you like this girl?\u201d The question took me off guard. Why else […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2606,2608,527,286,2607,90],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6902"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}