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| "FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS" |
| Author Unknown I do most of my praying in the morning. I jog a couple of miles and then I walk through a park near our house. The park is usually deserted at 6 a.m. and it gives me a chance to think and pray. One morning while I was getting ready to run, I remembered that a friend (a Christian brother) was taking advantage of me financially. He owed me $150, and he had some financial problems, so I had decided not to worry about it. But all that changed when I found out that his family had just bought new carpet for their den. I couldn't believe that he was spending money when he owed me money! As I ran, I thought about this, and the more I thought, the madder I got. By the time I stopped at the park to pray, I could barely even focus my thoughts to begin. Eventually I came to the end of the park and realized I had hardly prayed at all. I turned around and began walking back into the park. I was using the Lord's Prayer as a model that day. I began again: "Give us this day our daily bread...." And then it was as if someone had turned off the lights and turned on a home theater system, and I saw in my mind the parable of the ungrateful servant. I saw that man who had been forgiven so much, abusing his brother over a bit of pocket change. I saw the forgiven servant coming down the steps of his master's house, grabbing his brother, and shaking him, demanding, "Pay me what you owe!" I looked up to God and I said, "God, everything I have is on loan from you. Who am I to demand payment of this tiny sum?" Suddenly my thoughts were much clearer, and I continued to pray: "And forgive us our debts as we........" I stopped. Until that day, I had always inserted "sin" where the passage said "debt"; I had always prayed intently that I could forgive people who sinned against me. "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." There it was. My huge debt of sin, sitting there on the record books of God, and now He was watching me to see how it should be handled. And for the first time I saw a new meaning to that passage. Surely there is nothing harder to forgive than an unpaid debt. Perhaps that is why God demands that we forgive in order to be forgiven: it is the only way to appreciate what he did for us at Calvary. I wrote off the debt that day. I never mentioned it again. By the way, it was later repaid in full. How quick we are to ask God's forgiveness for ourselves. May we be equally quick to extend our forgiveness to others |
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