Wisdom From the Past - Tyrone Utech
Hello, my name is Tyrone. I love God, really care about youth, and want to encourage the church. I want to share with you how God used pain from my childhood to help me learn the importance of love and forgiveness.
Growing up I experienced a bit of what hell feels like at school. I had many bad encounters with old and younger students. Often I felt like I was everyone’s lightning rod, attracting bad attention whenever someone was looking for someone to vent on. Sometimes it meant getting harassed by a group, or just someone wanting to beat on me. Some of the hardest parts were when the school administration mistreated me. I felt like it stole my innocence, and I knew that I could never really get that back. However, I believe that God gave me wisdom and knowledge in its place.
God showed me that people who are alone are weak. When we are sinned against, that sin can infect us too. When people express anger towards us, we can get angry in response. Proverbs 22:24&25 says,
Make no friendship with a man given to anger,
nor go with a wrathful man,
lest you learn his ways
and entangle yourself in a snare.
Sin can be deadly for our soft hearts and our walks with God. I needed him to set me on the right path or else I might have become a criminal or worse.
God also taught me that the only way I would ever stand up under these thorns in life is through love. Just like anger can be infectious, love can be too. As the Bible says, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.Love never ends” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8). In this love we find joy; joy will bring strength through maturity, and a love and compassion from God.
In order to have infectious love, we need to be able to forgive. Romans 12:19&20 says, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”” When I was in grade nine, there was a really bad bully. One day he was very sad and was sorry for what he’d done. He was hugging me, and I forgave him and encouraged him to change. Forgiving him and pointing him towards change was how I ‘heaped burning coals’ on him.
As we seek to try to forgive and share infectious love, consider how people have been impacted by other people’s sins. They may have had bad examples or been abused themselves, and that is part of why they act like they do. We can help change things by following the Bible’s teaching to forgive and forget. This is a broken world we live in,and God wants us to make the best of it. We can learn to stop chasing the issues of the past and move forward with the healing and joy he can give.