GROWING SEEDS: "Forgive the Speaker, for Her Sins Are Many"

 

 

Max Lucado almost always starts his talks with a prayer that includes this, "Father, forgive the speaker, for his sins are many" as he prays for himself.  I love this.  Oh, if only we all started our conversations with God this way!  To humble ourselves as we place our sins, one by one, at His feet, never to be mentioned again.

"Then she knelt behind Him at His feet, weeping. 

Her tears fell on His feet, and she wiped them off with her hair......

Then Jesus said to the woman, 'Your sins are forgiven."

Luke 7:38 & 48

I've often wondered what God does with the tears I cry.  Psalms 56:8 says, "You keep track of all my sorrows.  You have collected all my tears in Your bottle.  You have recorded each tear and sorrow in Your book."  I think about the sinful woman in Luke 7 who boldly washed Jesus' feet with her tears and how much she must have cried to create enough tears to clean His feet.  Her remorse was huge.  

Many years ago, I repeated something to someone I knew I shouldn't have.  It fell out of my mouth faster than a Liz-speeding-ticket.  Although it was a truthful statement and I can sit here and attempt to justify and explain my reason for doing it, in the end, it served no purpose to repeat and, worse, it caused hurt to someone I cared deeply for.  I don't think I have ever felt more disappointed in myself  than I did at that very moment.  I cried buckets of tears daily over what I had done....how I had indirectly hurt someone I loved...and I begged God to forgive me.  He did....but I struggled to forgive myself.  Why?  Because I didn't feel I "deserved" to be forgiven.

In time, the deep scar of this sin began to scab and I learned I cannot hold myself to a different standard than Jesus Christ holds me to.  If He forgave me, then who am I to not also forgive myself? 

Are you hanging on to an unforgiveness......of yourself? 

It's time to remove this burden from your back and hand it over to God.  He plans on drop-kicking it off the mountain you've been trying to climb, never to be seen or remembered again.  Place your tears at Jesus' feet.....you are forgiven!

"Forgiveness is UNLOCKING the door to set someone FREE

and realizing that YOU were the PRISONER."

Max Lucado