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Childlike Forgiveness.Topics: Children, Forgiveness, Love
"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that." Luke 6:32-33, NIV
I've taken my three-year-old daughter, Kylie, to the park dozens of times.
But during a recent trip, God used Kylie to teach me a valuable lesson.
It all began, innocently enough, with some sand toys. One of the kids at the
park was a boy about Kylie's age, and he had some sand toys Kylie wanted to use. Since he wasn't using them at the moment, Kylie asked the boy's dad if she could use them, and he said yes.
The little boy, however, had other ideas. After Kylie had been playing with
the boy's toys for about a minute, he decided that he couldn't take it any
longer, and he proceeded to walk over and grab the toys away from Kylie,
causing her to fly into a fit of hysterical crying.
Now, you might think that the boy's father would rush to rectify the
injustice, but he didn't. When I casually mentioned to him that his son had
grabbed the sand toys away after he (the dad) had said she could use them, he only muttered something like "He has a little trouble with hoarding things.
We're trying to work on that." He then returned to talking to his friend.
My first thought was that this was a great opportunity for this dad to teach
his son about sharing. Well, actually, it was my second thought: The first
was to grab the toys right back from the boy and then tell his dad just what
I thought of his parenting skills.
But instead, I had to try to explain to my devastated daughter that the boy
didn't have to share his toys. After a few minutes, and still fuming, I
picked up Kylie and her bike and stormed home to pick up a few sand toys that (I said to myself) Kylie wouldn't have to share with that boy, no matter how much he begged.
As we approached our house, I looked at Kylie, and it was clear from the
contented look on her face that she had completely forgotten about the boy.
She was now focused entirely on getting her sand toys and returning to the
park to play with them.
At that moment, I realized that Christians are supposed to have Kylie's
forgive-and-forget attitude when we're wronged, and here I was bound and
determined to get revenge on a small boy for hurting my daughter's feelings!
Have you recently had the opportunity to "get even" with a family member,
coworker, or neighbor? Did you take the opportunity, or did you forgive? The Bible reminds us that God didn't seek to "get even" with us, but instead sent Christ to die on the cross for our sins. So the next time you want to kick
sand in the face of a selfish person, remember that God forgives us as
quickly as my daughter forgave the little boy at the park. If you're like me,
that puts things into perspective.
Matt Donnelly, for the CO staff