Forgiveness

¹ Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;

² O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.

³ If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?

⁴ But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.

⁵ I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.

Psalm 130: 1-5 (NIV)

I was driving to work today and got cut off by someone today. It made me angry, and I remembered what I had written only an hour before about being a Christian. So I let it go - after I yelled a little. However, I didn't honk or try to cut him off. Instead I took a deep breath and let it go - eventually. Still, I was reminded of times when I haven't let it go.

It's easy to say, "I'm gonna be a good Christian today!" It is another thing entirely to actually do it. In the end we don't always succeed. The psalmist tells us in today's verse that God forgives us and we should put our hope in Him. This isn't to say that we should sin willfully and then ask for forgiveness. We're not mobsters, and God isn't a car wash for our sins. But when we do try and fail, we ask for forgiveness and help. And we can be encouraged by the fact that we can do better next time. The clock restarts every time we mess up, and not just on Sunday mornings when we confess our sins and take communion.

So even when we do yell at someone while driving, or lead a less than Christian example, we can still take a deep breath and try again - right then and there. God is always ready to forgive.

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