What would Jesus see?
Orchestra conductor Alastair Willis just hated someone he thought had ruined his career. Yet when he finally forgave — when he finally saw this person through Jesus’ eyes — his career took off.
Note: when Alastair refers to “Mrs. Eddy” at the end of the podcast, he means Mary Baker Eddy, who established the Christian Science church. When Eddy wrote “Love is reflected in love,” she may have meant that God’s nature as Love itself is reflected in our love for others.
Check out the related Radical Act:
FORGIVE 70 x 7
Special thanks to the It's About Good Collective for the music used in this podcast.
Posted on Wednesday, June 27th, 2012 at 11:17 am | Follow responses with the RSS feedTopics: Work Relationships
Alastair, thank you for sharing this personal experience. I too have struggled with actions of other people that seem to affect my work and career negatively. Your story is such a tangible and timely reminder of our true job and career – seeing as Jesus saw.
Such a great experience! I wonder if this helps with the question… I had a ‘forgiveness experience’ many years ago which also took 18 months, and I used to ask the same question as I went along – how will I know when I’ve done all the forgiving that’s necessary? Then one day it occurred to me that God had a special lesson for me, some gold out of the crucible, and I became eager to stay the course and find out what it was. One day I was studying the first four pages of the chapter “Christian Science Practice” in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, and realised that forgiveness was even more than a person forgiving a person – it was something we worked out with God alone. We were coming to the Christ for our OWN forgiveness, and experiencing the unconditional love of God. But I haven’t done anything wrong, I thought! And then I got it. I prayed from the very depths of my heart, ‘Father, forgive ME for ever having held a thought about my brother man that was less than Godlike.’. I was suddenly aware of the pure love of Christ, the love which had never even known the problem, flooding my thought. I realised there was nothing TO forgive! That love had wiped it away, and I was free. We never have to wait for anyone else to change – Christ’s love simply changes us.
Thank you so much Fenella for sharing this. The light from this story is so bright. If you should want to share more about it I know many people would appreciate seeing it here: http://time4thinkers.com/7-forgive-70-x-7/ Thank you!
Thank you, brother Alastair. Your point about forgiveness always reaping great benefits is well taken, but how can we know we’ve forgiven? When is the moment that we know? Can’t we say we do, can’t we think we do, but still have lingering resentment?
Would love to hear more about that POW – illumination! – moment. And it’s interesting to think about the relationship between resentment and fear. Maybe we know we’ve fully forgiven because we no longer are afraid…