Category: . . . Forgiveness
Deserted by All My Friends: How Should I Respond?
Perhaps you’ve had this experience: Something was troubling you. It was consuming your life, weighing you down, distracting your attention. You decided to share this with your brothers and sisters in Christ. You needed their help. You longed for their prayers. Then the moment came—perhaps in...
A Valentine Form Jimmy
Valentine’s Day brings back some strange memories for me. I’m especially haunted by the fact that after signing my batch of Valentines on the night before the classroom exchange I would invariably inscribe some with “Form Jimmy.” I hated that. I knew the difference between “Form”...
The Endless, Downward Spiral of Harbored Hurt
“A man of great anger will bear the penalty, for if you rescue him, you will only have to do it again.” (Proverbs 19:19) I lived for many years beside a very, very bitter man. The slightest issue would set him off. If any neighbor children’s...
Jesus on Forgiveness
When we wish to learn as much as possible about something, and when there is a singular renowned expert on that particular subject whose teaching happens to be plentiful and immediately accessible, it would seem unwise to spend a lot of time looking elsewhere for our...
The Bitterness Game
“Never pay back evil for evil to anyone,” God warns. Never? Like a man who has to move a water buffalo off the highway, “It ain’t all that easy.” After all, you’ve been deeply hurt, and the pain has been going on a long time. How...
A Woman of the City, Who Was a Sinner
I once spoke to a woman who thought that she did not need forgiveness from God. Her justification was that she did not do all the bad things other people were always doing. She didn’t use foul language, she didn’t get drunk every weekend, and she...
What to Do With Sin
Here’s a church-life guarantee: people sin. Sometimes, they even sin against you. We all know this. What we don’t always know is how to deal with it. In my experience, we tend to swing to one of two extremes. At times we confront sin in such...
Jesus, Forgiveness, & Hugs Galore
I got an “S minus” in the category of “plays well with others” on my second grade report card. “S” stood for “satisfactory,” so you now understand why I was in trouble with my parents—the dreaded minus symbol! Why the poor grade? I was a kickball...
Ladies: Read this Before You Nail His Socks to the Floor
Every night for 45 years, he took off his socks and left them on the floor by the bed. And every morning, she picked them up and put them in the hamper. And every day, she resented doing it just a little more. At first, it...
