Too Much Fertilizer

His grace creations!

Offering Directions for the Journey

Thanks for visiting Floral Feelings, Inc.  We hope we can help you with some of the relational ‘gardening’ problems you may be having with any Christians in your life.

Christians aren’t the only ones who can fail to forgive but they claim to follow the greatest forgiver of all time so maybe its right to expect more of them.  Regardless of what people have a right to expect, when those expectations fail to materialize, your view of us and more importantly how you see our faith, can take a beating.

We get regular emails from visitors to this site with two common themes.  First a fairly harsh attitude toward Christians whose behavior didn’t match the writer’s expectation.  Second, a direct correlation between the Christian’s perceived failure to ‘walk their talk’ and the writer’s feelings about the Christian faith.

Some serious roadblocks to spiritual discussions can be erected when a Christian carries an unforgiving attitude.  So what can be done about it?

Forgiveness Factors

Without trying to excuse a Christian’s unforgiving nature, here are a couple of possible ‘reasons’ to help explain their less than gracious behavior.

· They might be highly religious or very spiritual and still not be a Christian.  According to a passage in the Bible, God provides a special power to Christians that can change inbred character traits and long standing behaviors.  If you haven’t seen any changes since they became a Christian, you may not be looking at a one.

· The opposite might also be true.  Bad behavior doesn’t necessarily mean a person is not a Christian.  Though God could eliminate every flaw in a person at a moment in time, the process for most of us is gradual.  I’m not exactly sure why this is so but there’s lots of evidence to show it is.  Maybe God just hasn’t finished removing the particular problem you’re dealing with in a friend or family member.

The bottom line is you’re dealing with a fallible human and perfection is not one of the things you’ll find.  So if you’re considering Christianity, why not look instead at the one Christians are supposed to emulate?

Jesus and Forgiveness

Christ is depicted throughout the Bible as a man of great compassion and deep feeling for the hurting and wounded.  When confronted with a religious leader’s view of a woman whose lifestyle was well know in the town, Christ not only forgave her but pointed out the character flaw in the leader’s own life.

Every one of his closest followers abandoned him when he was arrested.  Yet after his death and resurrection he greeted them as friends and prepared them a meal.  That’s forgiveness!

Even those responsible for his vicious beating and execution were forgiven by this man called Jesus.

A Final Forgiveness

It feels good to be deeply forgiven.  Wounds can be healed, friendships restored, and relationships brought to stronger bonds of commitment and love.  While we hope an unforgiving Christian isn’t causing problems in your life, if it happens we hope you’ll consider that there could be some reason they’re not acting like the Jesus they claim to follow. 

More importantly, as you read the passages we mentioned about Jesus, we hope you’ll be drawn toward this one who forgives people in every walk of life.

Too Much Fertilizer has been brought to you courtesy of…

Unsightly Gardens, a subsidiary of The Relational Place.