The Forgiveness List

It’s hard to blog when you’re constantly thinking about being vaguely inspirational and witty.  Especially when you’re lacking inspiration and being witty is too much hassle.  Blogging is especially hard when you think about the public persona you have to live up to, a rod for one’s own back me thinks!

One piece of advice I was given when thinking about blogging and finding sources of inspiration was to recycle.  Look at articles, read books, nab poems, rephrase…it’s basically acceptable plagiarism! So tonight I thought "easy peasy!" I’ll just take a look at my book called “Soul Food for Mums”, it’s usually quite interesting and helpful, I can just recycle this week’s topic.  I can borrow someone else’s inspiration and wit and pass it on as my own…

But I then realised that all I would be doing would be lying to myself and the handful of faithful readers out there!  So here’s what I’ve really been dealing with recently:

The Forgiveness List:

I have lost my temper so many times recently, taken God’s holy and precious name and made it into a swear word, been angry towards my brothers and sisters in Christ, hated people, been impatient with people, been self-serving and self-seeking (in fact I was thinking the other day there isn’t one single positive word that begins with “self”…please correct me if I’m wrong!).  There are so many things I have done wrong and I haven’t asked forgiveness for a single one.  Then, in a few brief recent moments, when I have thought about apologizing to God I haven’t known where to start! Or how to tackle my huge list of sins and I’ve panicked and given up thinking I’m just too sinful to come to God.

The Realization:

On Sunday my frustration was finally vented and talked about with a kind Church family member.  Later that day I said to God “I’m sorry”.  And that was it.  I didn’t have to list all the things I’d been thinking about, I didn’t have to try and recall sins I’d forgotten I had committed.  Psalm 139 tells me that God knows when I stand up and sit down, he’s got a pretty good memory and remembers ALL my sins BUT the great thing about being genuinely sorry and asking for forgiveness is that he then instantly forgets them.  My slate is wiped clean because God has already poured out his anger towards my sin on Jesus and all I need to do is trust that fact and live in light of it.

Happy Monday:

A good friend came to my house on Monday and I told her how I’d been feeling and what’s being going on in my head.  Together we briefly looked at Isaiah 25 here is the first verse: “O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you; I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure.” The last thing I have thought about recently is exalting the Lord and praising his name and it’s the last thing I’ve done.  But my friend pointed out to me that coming back to the Lord and asking for his forgiveness was exalting the Lord!  It honours him and gives praise to his name.

So that’s it. That’s what I’ve been thinking about in the past few days.  I hope it’s useful, I hope it tells you a bit about my heart and my journey but most importantly a bit about what kind of God I worship.