Christian Devotion, Forgiveness
Forgiveness for Mistakes Along Life's Pathway
Recently, I was preparing my hummingbird feeders. The solution consists of one part sugar to four parts water, and these little babies adore freshly prepared nectar. If it's not fresh, the sugar in the water encourages mold to take root and the mold can end up being passed onto the hummingbird, and may cause its untimely demise.
After I had prepared my nectar, I accidentally spilled a good deal on the floor, because I filled my container too full. If only spills would clean-up as easily as they do in television commercials. After multiple scrubbings, and a roll of paper towels later, the floor was still sticky. And finally, I was able to correct one area of the spill, only to find another sticky area shortly thereafter. Every time that I stepped on a sticky area - even days later, I was reminded of my inadequacy in returning the floor to its former non-sticky state, in addition to the big sugar spill. Such is life....
So many times along Life's Pathway, we make mistakes. And mistakes are cloaked in several shrouds:
- - Sometimes mistakes are made....by mistake, or accident;
- - Sometimes mistakes are made out of innocence;
- - Sometimes mistakes are made because of an incorrect assumption;
- - Sometimes mistakes are made because we lack experience or knowledge of the situation;
- - Sometimes mistakes are purposely make to hurt others, or to teach them a lesson.
- - Mistakes may be boldly made, or made in secret.
The nectar recipe for my hummingbirds mirrors many of our lives, as most of the time we perform quite well.....except for those unfortunate times when we make mistakes. As Christians, we ask God to forgive us when our mistakes end up hurting other people. Sometimes, we feel so bad and guilty over our mistakes, we can't get past them - we can't fully surrender our guilt and accept God's forgiveness.
We pray.....we get off our knees, then it doesn't take long for us to discover another sticky spot which reminds us of our mistakes. In turn, we may feel undeserving, unworthy, cruel or mean-spirited. If only, if only we could go back and redo that part of our lives....but we can't do the impossible.
When I was a child, I remember when I asked my parents for something - and it wasn't much, as we didn't have much. In those days, it was almost unheard of for the woman to work, as her responsibility resided in keeping a clean house, in meeting the family's personal needs, cooking, washing and so forth. And when I asked once, my parents listened. When I asked a second time, I could tell that I made them irritated. And when I asked a third time, I was generally told to keep my wishes to myself. Imagine how they might have reacted if they had granted my wish, only to find that I kept asking them for the wish? They would have assumed that I was not quite right in the head, and rightly so.
Imagine how God must feel when we ask him over and over and over and over again for forgiveness, when He has already forgiven us? We are allowing our mistakes to ferment and turn into mold.....which could end up being our demise - or at minimum, make for an unhappy life.
There are times when we must get past our own feelings of guilt and remorse and accept His forgiveness, and get on with our lives. After all, God must be looking forward to the good things that we'll be sharing in our future talks with Him, rather than listening to the same broken record over and over and over again.
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