Spiritual Survival Guide
6: Keeping It Going: Moving Beyond Survival Mode
We’ve come seven steps so far. Starting to see the connection yet? Feel the process unfold? This is a journey we’re on, a journey to Christlikeness. Steps Eight and Nine: Restitution We face our debts. We apologize to those we’ve harmed. We pay back. We repair damage. At this point we need to do what we can to get right with other people, to do what we can to repair damaged relationships. We “make a list of persons we have harmed and become willing to make amends to them all,” and then we go ahead and “make direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.” We’d love to be completely free at this stage, but we aren’t. We’re still carrying a lot of baggage from our past. We have to ask ourselves, “Who do we owe and what do we owe them?” It’s a great question that we don’t like to ask ourselves. The very idea of owing somebody—of being indebted, of having things unresolved and unpaid, of having some obligation out there with our name on it , just waiting for us—makes us feel anything but free. And at our core, we just want to be free, right? Debt-free. Obligation free. Free. But if we don’t take this two-part step and deal with this question head on, we’ll never be free. We’ll continue to have an uneasy conscience. We’ll continue avoiding eye contact with certain people. We’ll continue to be saddled with those lingering debts out there that weigh us down in here. But before you come up with a snap answer about who you owe, think about this first. Think about how Jesus calls us to radical, sacrificial love, and to a deep and life-long obligation to one another. How are you do- ing on that scorecard? If we measure where we are and what we owe not by our own self-serving standards but by the standards that Jesus sets for
us, then we’re debtors, plain and simple. All of us. And that’s why the daily prayer Jesus taught us includes the phrase “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Translate the word however you want to: debts, sins, trespasses. Or, how about translating it this way: damage . “Forgive us the damage we’ve done, as we forgive those who have damaged us.” We do damage to people both by what we do, deliberately or accidentally, and also by what we fail to do—all the damage we inflict by not caring, by shirking our responsibility. Think about the long trail of damaged people that we each leave behind us in life. We’re like a storm blowing through a crowded town. We’re like a sick person spreading an infection. Think of all the harsh words, half-truths, and critical comments we’ve said—as well as all the words of comfort or praise for others that we refuse or fail to say. Think of the damage we do by soaking up all the attention and energy and leaving none for others. Think of the damage we do by withdrawing into our own world and leaving others to fend for themselves. Think of all the damage we’ve done to our kids by not being there for them. Think of the damage we do by our selfishness and self-absorption. The damage we do by turning a blind eye to someone in trouble. The dam- age we do by treating women as objects. The damage we inflict by the ripple effect of our anger, our depression, our alcoholism, our lust, our competitiveness, our judgmentalism, our lack of humor, our laziness, our envy, our greed, our ingratitude. Think about all the accumulated damage we’ve done! All that cost! Think about the crowd of faces of people we’ve damaged. But then think about this, too—about what we can still do in response. Think about the steps we can still take, the damage we can still repair,
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