Craig Clouston

 

Do We Shake The Dust Off?

If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave…as a testimony against them.

Luke9:5

The rift had been widening for two years when the outright ‘shunning’ took place. What seemed so unacceptable and painful about the act was that they proclaimed their still-present love for one-another to other family members, and wished things had never come to this.

But third-party declarations and unspoken truth have no power to heal, and each chose not to speak their true feelings directly, clutching their offenses like security blankets, their stubborn pride asserting itself in the form of righteous indignation, even in the face of forfeiting family relationships.

So on a cold December day, mother and father were turned away from their child’s home, told their differences could not be reconciled and they were no longer welcome.

†

With great wounding comes great pain…and the possibility of thoughtless acts meant to inflict wounds in retaliation. Sadly, the idiom: ‘Hurting people hurt other people’ is true. Yet, it need not be. We have a choice to extend grace, leaving the lines of communication to open, remaining hopeful that God will have His way in everyone’s hearts, bringing restoration.

In the worst of circumstances, there is the temptation to view Jesus’ instruction of, ‘shake the dust from your feet’ to His Disciples as the vehicle we are to employ in separating ourselves from the pain. But, good-willed people are as prone to mistakenly translate, and therefore execute this form of judgment as are non-believers. And in the process they execute the hope of reconciliation, and estrange themselves from God’s ability to speak life into the void.

Though we read three times in the Gospels of Jesus’ instruction, and are given a literal example in Acts 13:51, family need never apply to this directive.

We can, when confronted with such wounding, dig deep enough to let Jesus hold our heart as we suffer for the sake of others, seeking the reward of future peace and restoration.

Prayer

“Lord, I hurt in ways words cannot convey. But I trust that You know how to lead me and my family back into a loving relationship. I ask for the strength to extend grace while asking you to remove from me a heart of wounded judgment. In Jesus’ Name, amen.”