The Gravest Hurt

 

In 1944, a group known forever as the Mills Brother recorded a song for which they became famous, a song that has endured for decades, “You Always Hurt The One You Love.”  Here is the start:

You always hurt the one you love,

The one you shouldn’t hurt at all.

 

Although this is written and sung as a love song, the theme can stretch well beyond that.  The people we love include not just lovers, spouses, but also parents, siblings, dear friends and others who step in and out of our lives throughout the years.

 

The second verse starts with this:

You always break the kindest heart

With a hasty word you can’t recall.

 

Recall is not about remembering, it is about not being able to call or take it back.

 

As I said above, we hurt those we love, whether we mean to do so or inadvertently by a careless or thoughtless word or act.

 

Who else do we hurt?  That would be the most precious of all, God.  And the way we do that is through sin.  Every time we sin, in whatever matter or means, we hurt God.  We may do or say something to someone.  Remember Christ told us the least we do to a child, we also do it to him.  Expanding on that, the least we do to someone else, we are also doing it to God.  He feels our joys and our pains, so he knows and feels whatever we did, and that someone else feels.

 

The gravest hurt we can do to God is to turn our backs on him, to deny him, to spurn his love of us.  Whether it is a matter of denying him or turning instead to the Prime Enemy, Satan.

 

Just as God tells us to forgive those who harm us, so too will he forgive us when we hurt him.  The best news is his arms are always open to welcome us back.  His forgiveness is infinite, all we have to do is ask.

 

So take a good look at your dealings with God.  Have you hurt him through some sin, grave or small?  You don’t have to go to church to ask him to forgive you, you just have to ask.  If you are more comfortable confessing to a minister, priest, or rabbi, to be told how God loves you and forgives you, then absolutely do so.

 

Remember this:

God waits

Just ask