"Relationships don't thrive because the guilty are punished but because the innocent are merciful".
I'm back again from long break. During this break, I have been travelling and enjoying my life. One day this quote came into my thoughts. It's about Relationship between humans and relationship between God and us. I have been in relationship, still in, and many different kind of relationship. For example: Relationship between family members, relationship between boy and a girl, relationship between friends, professional kind of relationship and etc. In all these relationships, there will be two kinds of people, innocent and guilty one.
Relationship is not successful because the guilty are punished for their mistakes but for the innocents are merciful or gracious. Think for awhile, how many times we have been thinking to punish the one we love, so that, that person will not do the same mistakes again and again. At the end the relationship just end up like that. It is because we have been concentrating too much on punishing the one we love.
I still remember, when I was teenage, at some point of my life I have been rebellious to my parents. I used to have long hair and dyed. My father saw me, and he could have punished me but he didn’t. All he did was to ask me, “son what happen to your hair?” of course as his son, I just smile to him. I could see in his face that he is worrying about me. Every time I rebelled against my parents, they have been merciful to me. Now I know and understand the grace they showed to me all these long. And it was an important source to build our relationship to grow stronger and deeper.
The same experience comes in our relationship between us and our creator. Every time we go against him and do all the silly things. We will be thinking that, He is going to send us thunder… and Zappppppppzzz…. us for all the sin we have done to Him. When I was child and teenage, my Sunday class teachers and youth class teachers will always talk about God’s judgement as it is very scary and life taking event. I even had nightmares about God’s judgement at night when I’m asleep. Until I came here to my college, while I study Bible more, I found out that, God’s judgment’s primary focus is on saving humankind and not to punish them. It is where to show us that GOD is so gracious and powerful to redeem, to heal, to save, and to vindicate us from this sinful world. Some of you might ask about the punishment part. Actually this punishment part is not primary part of God’s judgment. It is only for those who fall short or didn’t repent from all their sins. It is for those who don’t want to be in relationship with God. Our relationship with God is growing or successful because God is Gracious and Loving, and not because of punishment… Punishment is only for those who are outside of HIS relationship.
Most of us will be thinking that, GOD is innocent and that's why we are taking advantage on HIM... But if you think carefully, the relationship doesn’t thrive because the guilty are punished but the innocent are merciful... ... It is because of God’s grace, we have relationship with HIM… when there is no mercy or grace… there is no humankind..
REMEMBER GOD IS GRACIOUS AND BE YE ALSO MERCIFUL TO ONE ANOTHER...
"Relationships don't thrive because the guilty are punished but because the innocent are merciful".
Robert J Agustin
