DAILY GUIDE DEVOTIONAL ; A SOURED RELATIONSHIP
Soured Relationship....who hasn't been there? It's what many of us try to avoid but most times it happens unavoidably. Friends turning into enemies, couples becoming strangers to each other. Siblings becoming the worst enemies and so on. This is what David experienced here in this chapter. His goodwill and good intentions were wrongly interpreted and this resulted in a friendly relationship going sour. David, as we could see from the previous chapter, was a man of integrity. He is a loyal friend and would never forget a kind gesture. In his bid to repay the friendly disposition of Nahash to his son Hanun, he got ridiculed, derided and shamed. It was the height of insult.
Why do relationships turn sour? Most of the time it's as a result of distrust and disloyalty. Friendship requires that we impose a level of trust in our friends. Friends are usually not our family members but people with whom we have a heart bond. It's a relationship forged by trust and love. Once trust is injured the friendly relationship is definitely ruined. In the case of Nahun, he never understood the kind of man David is, his loyalty and kind heart so he misjudged him.
Taking counsel or taking sides with one party when a relationship is about to go sour is something we must be careful about. Hanun could have escaped David's wrath if he hadn't listened to his advisers without questions. How could they have predicted David's thought when he did not display any action that may warrant such suspicions? We all could be guilty of this. Suspicion makes us wary of people and most of the time our suspicions are not correct. They are often based on our insecurities. The best measure in such times is to prayerfully really on God for guidance instead of relying on what we may be suspecting.
JESUS has healed the soured relationship between us and his father. His heart of love led him to take a most drastic step to bridge the gap between God and humanity to mend all fences. Today we stand blameless and holy before God because of what JESUS had done. We need to learn from Jesus and also lean on Him to grant us grace to amend all soured relationship in our marriages, family, businesses, work, church etc. God wants us to live in harmony. He instructs us to pursue peace with all men and holiness without which no man will see the lord.
Hanun decided to go to war, instead of dialogue. This cost him more than he ever imagined. May we not allow pride to reduce us to a ridicule. "Come onto me all you that labour and are heavy ladened and I will give you rest" is the master's injunction. When we keep enemies we carry a very heavy burden. The moment we decide to allow Jesus relieve us of this burden by accepting to forgive and let go, we feel a lot of relief. Give Jesus your heart today, present all your soured relationships to him. He knows how to make them good again.
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