Today, Remember Forgiveness

Colossians 3:13 (NIV) Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

It’s Monday. Another work week begins, another school week has started. You woke up looking forward to enjoying breakfast. You intended to speak loving words to your spouse. You were going to pay more attention to the kids. You can’t get into any bathroom in your house because they’re all occupied. And you really, really need to go. Suddenly, Sunday’s sermon that you found so enlightening and encouraging seems long gone.

Me, too.

Someone you encounter today will need forgiveness. Today, you will need forgiveness.

Me. Too.

I have found it’s hard, if not impossible, to get through one day without needing forgiveness or needing to forgive someone. Without God, it is impossible.

Romans 3:23 (KJV) For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

The truth is that we are all flawed. We all have our bad moments; our bad thoughts. Words fly out of our mouth before our mind can shut our lips and before we know it we’ve set a whole forest ablaze. The smart guy who loves to show everybody up at at work presents the same idea you presented last week and somehow finagles a promotion out of it, whereas your boss looked at you like your village lost its’ idiot. You consider all options. Quitting. Slashing his tires. Murder. You’re angry. You promised yourself and God you weren’t going to be angry anymore. Yet, there you stand: Pissed. To top it all off…your local coffee shop is all out of pumpkin spice lattes! You left home mad. You get home madder. You need forgiveness. You need to forgive.

Matthew 6:14-15 (NIV) For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

I for one am glad that there is a God and I’m not him. You probably are too. I find discernment quickly morphs into judgement. It’s all to easy for me to take other people’s inventory—presumably as some crazy rationale for not focusing more on my own. After all, I probably have a log or two in my own eye that I need to remove before trying to fix other people. And yes…I’m a fixer. Give me five minutes and I’ll tell you what’s wrong with you and what you need to do to fix it. Thankfully, by God’s grace, I’ve gotten better over the years at taking stock of my own shortcomings instead of everybody else’s. There’s certainly no shortage of things for me to work on. I remain a work in progress.

For me, I’ve found the more time I spend in His Word and the more time I spend talking to God in prayer the better chance I have of not only surviving the day, but to experience living life abundantly. I’m not perfect. None of us are. It’s a good thing God is prepared to forgive us. All we need to do is remember to ask…