Category Archives: #forgiveness

A Prayer of Forgiveness

Lord, you have said that I cannot expect to be forgiven if I have not forgiven others.

Whoa! Do you really mean that? Yikes, you must mean that, I’ve found it in your Word several times. Hmmm.

But I cannot forgive like you, Lord, you are infinitely more powerful than me. You got a HUGE forgiver, but my forgiver is tiny. I cannot possible keep up with you in spreading forgiveness. In fact, I need you to forgive the people that I cannot forgive. Hmmm. I guess I still don’t understand.

Forgive. I am to forgive. You forgive me, and I am to forgive. If I want to be forgiven, if I expect to be forgiven, if I want my prayers to be heard, then I am to forgive. There’s no way around that, God? Hmmm.

Well, in that case, I guess there is no offense that is more important to me than your blessing. I want to know you, Lord. I want you to hear my prayers, Lord. I want to feel your forgiveness, and I want to be FREE!

I want to be free of the hurt, I want to be free of the offense, I want to be free of any grudge, there is nothing that anyone has ever done to me that is more important to me than … the fullness of my salvation in you, Lord.

I know … that I know … that I know that grace is a free gift. It does not depend on me, and it is not taken from me if I cannot bring myself to forgive. But I want to forgive.

You have forgiven me, and I want others to feel forgiven by me. I want to be free, Lord, I want to be free of holding grudges, and I want to be free of harboring anger and hatred toward others for everything they may have ever done to me.

Holding on … not forgiving, it is just not worth it. Bitterness only entraps me, it stops me, it holds me, and I feel no joy in being bitter, in holding grudges, in withholding forgiveness.

The carnal part of me likes to think that it feels good to hold a grudge against another, but I know in my heart that I want to move on … I want to be free … I want to forgive. I want to be a HUGE forgiver like you, Lord.

I am a forgiving, machine. I am free, and I forgive everyone who has ever wronged me. I forgive everyone who has ever spoken against me, who has ever tried to destroy me with their tongue. I forgive those who have cheated me, stolen from me, I forgive every last one of them.

I forgive those who know me but don’t love me, I forgive them.

I want the blessing of you God on my life, so I forgive.

I want you God, the Almighty One, to hear my prayers, to move mountains for me, so I forgive.

I want to be wise and powerful and humble and rich and generous and loving, so I forgive.

I forgive. I forgive. I forgive.

That’s what I do, I forgive. I love to forgive.

Thank you, Lord.

Accuser or Redeemer?

I prefer to see life as a rich tapestry of colors and hues, however on occasion it is helpful to view life in black and white terms.

Speaking of black and white, then, it seems to me that there are two forces at work in the world, the force of accusation and the force of redemption. And all of us at any given moment are acting more like an accuser … or more like a redeemer.

The voice of accusation is the loudest and most common voice. In my humble opinion, people spend far more time looking for fault in others than looking for the good.

My Dad kept a saying posting in his office for many years, it read: The way some people find fault, you’d think there was a reward. Now I realize that uttering that very saying seems to contradict the very point that is made, that by saying that some people are always finding fault … you are actually finding fault with fault-finders. Be that as it may, the people who are disturbed by fault-finders are generally the people who don’t practice finding fault.

So, how do you live most of the time … acting like an accuser, or acting like a redeemer?

I encourage you to be a redeemer, to spend your days looking for the good in people, be an encourager and tell others what you like about them, and when you are talking about someone who is not present, speak about that person in positive terms.

If you cannot make a practice of being a redeemer, an encourager, of being someone who looks for the good in others, then please quit tearing down the world and others with your tongue.

The New Testament says that the tongue can be a flame of fire, and that it is set on fire by Hell itself … with the tongue we bless God, and then turn around and curse others with it. My friends, that ought not to be.

Do we really think God is stupid? Some people spend all week trashing other people at work in a vain attempt to make “friends” and get ahead, and practice criticizing other people outside of work (neighbors, relatives, whoever), and then show up at church or temple or synagogue or mosque or sitting or wherever, and say “Bless you, God”

That’s nothing but a damn joke, and not the least bit funny.

Make up your mind and choose one path or the other. Be an encourager, speak well of others, be supportive, build up your fellow human being and humankind in general … or, like my Dad once said to me when I was still a small child, “If you don’t have something good to say about someone else, keep your damn mouth shut.”

Ouch! That hurts, eh?