60 Seconds – Mending Fences

In his book, Unfinished Business: One Man’s Extraordinary Year Of Trying To Do The Right Things, Lee Kravitz offers advice on how to make amends.

After losing his job in October, 2007, he took stock of his life, and didn’t like what he saw. He revealed that working as hard as he did over the years, he had become disconnected from the people who mattered the most, even his wife and three young children.

He then devoted himself to tending to what he called “my unfinished business.” Not only did he become a more attentive husband, father, son, and friend, but he did some fence mending for past disputes, hurts, etc. He said, “Our grudges and rivalries persist when it would be better to forgive, heal, and move on.”

Christ said, “So, if when you are offering your gift at the altar, you there remember that your brother has any grievance against you, leave your gift at the altar, and go. First, make peace with your brother, and then come back and present your gift” (Matthew 5:23, 24, The Amplified Bible).

Christosom stated, “Let even my service be interrupted, that love may abide, since reconciliation to thy brother is an acceptable sacrifice.”

In Matthew 6:12, we read, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” William Barclay said, “The literal meaning is: ‘Forgive us our sins in proportion as we forgive those who have sinned against us’.”

Mike Krzyzewski, head coach of Duke University men’s basketball program, in stating his support for a compromise between the Big East and ACC, “I hope we mend fences, because we’ve obviously gone into another person’s yard with our tractor-trailor, and knocked down a few trees.”

When Robert Louis Stevenson lived in the South Sea Islands, he used always to conduct family worship in the mornings for his household. It always concluded with the Lord’s Prayer. One morning, in the middle of Matthew 6:12, he rose from his knees, and left the room. His health was always precarious, so his wife followed him, thinking that he was ill. “Is there anything wrong?” she asked. “Only this,” said Stevenson, “I am not fit to pray the Lord’s Prayer today.”

“If the Lord were as unforgiving to us sinful and disobedient humans as we are to each other, even the best among us wouldn’t stand a chance at the Great Judgment. It may not be in the Bible, but there is God’s own truth in Alexander Pope’s proverb, ‘To err is human, to forgive is divine'” (Billy Graham).