PLEASE FORGIVE ME
How easy it is for us to say something that brings a breach between us and those we love. What can we do when that happens to us? If we don’t resolve the offence, it can separate close friends for a lifetime. It’s not enough to feel guilty about it; we must take an additional step that involves humility. The Bible clearly teaches that humble people will obtain help from the Lord, but prideful people will be resisted by him. King David had made a decision to count the people in direct disobedience to God’s command to not do this. Immediately afterwards, he felt guilty and humbled himself before God.
“After David had everyone counted, he felt guilty and told the LORD,
"What I did was stupid and terribly wrong. LORD, please forgive me.”
2Sa 24:10 CEV
King David paid a price for his disobedience, but God fully forgave him. The Bible says David was a man after God’s own heart. I wonder if his ability to say “I was wrong, please forgive me” was not the quality that gave him that title.
Peter Gregory wrote about an experience he had during his employment in a print shop. His employer had purchased an old printing press and wanted Peter to learn to print with it. Peter tried hard to learn the complex art of offset printing by trial and error. One day the employer came out to talk with him and said, “I’ll be blunt and to the point. Your printing is horrible and your designs are not much better!” Deeply hurt, Peter stuffed his angry feelings until he was driving home after work. He then started yelling out his frustrations to an empty passenger’s seat. He formulated just how he would let the employer have a piece of his mind the next day. After he fired up the antique printing machine the next day, his employer came walking into the print shop straight toward Peter. Before Peter could open his mouth to give him a piece of his mind, the employer spoke. “Peter, I owe you an apology. I came out here yesterday and spoke as though I knew something about what you were doing. I know I hurt you and had no business talking to you like that. I feel horrible. Will you forgive me?” Shocked, Peter forgot his original formulated speech and said, “That’s ok, don’t worry about it.” No one had ever apologized to him before, let alone an authority figure. The two men reconciled and became lifetime friends.
Many marriages could be saved and friendships restored if we would humble ourselves before God and one another. Perhaps the most powerful sentence in the whole wide world is… “I was wrong, please forgive me.”
Al Yoder
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