“Isn’t somebody going to forgive me?”
The boy had broken something very valuable. Now, in a room of scornful adults he was exposed, apologetic and ashamed. Glares, frowns, silence and crossed arms surrounded him. Finally, in tears he mournfully broke, “Isn’t somebody going to forgive me?”
Jim McGuiggan writes in The God of The Towel, “I know it isn’t helpful to act as if there are no wrongs to forgive. I know it isn’t right to whitewash our wickedness…but for the penitent heart, filled with remorse, there must be full, free, glad forgiveness!
“It’s too easy to play God, too easy to find reasons to withhold the full restoration of full fellowship. To the impenitent who don’t feel the forgiveness, our isolating them or giving them the cold shoulder means nothing. It’s the remorseful and penitent who are like a mass of exposed nerve endings…it’s these who need our fellowship; it’s these who agonize at every cold look, every flat and toneless word. They weep when they’re alone and writhe in agony at the memory of your cool “hello” and “goodbye” when they tried to engage you in conversation earlier in the day”. And, may I add, whether it’s in the mall, on the phone or at the place of worship it is the same.
“They can’t enjoy the forgiveness God has freely given them, because you, we, make them doubt. They haven’t the strength or assurance to live in the joy and freedom of a gracious God’s free-flowing grace.”
Can we imagine free-flowing grace?! We’ve seen pictures of Niagara Falls. Maybe you’ve been blest to visit them An estimated 2.7 BILLION gallons of water flows over the falls each hour! Incomprehensible!
So is God’s forgiveness! So is His grace…totally free flowing, never ending! To even attempt to comprehend “The Falls” you have to stand there, on the edge, experience its mist and roar. Soaked and deafened it is still incomprehensible!
Our return each Lord’s Day to the foot of “The Cross” and “The Empty Tomb” in our worship and communion is to gaze upon a spectacle that is beyond our reasoning and understanding. Like the
Niagara of our soul so is God’s free-flowing grace. And God doesn’t “keep score”!
Jim writes, “There are those who have forgiven us but who have made it clear how costly it all was. They cannot give it graciously…we must be made aware that our sin has pressed the very limits of a human…(and that)..it was just about all the forgiver could do to be reconciled with us.”
“It isn’t so with God. Like a gracious host, says Forsyth, he doesn’t tediously go on about the cost of Forgiveness.”
“’Isn’t somebody going to forgive me?’ God rises up with a warm, though wounded heart, takes us to himself and says, ‘I will. I will forgive you.’.”
And, thus, our becoming “God-like” and our pursuit of “godliness”, without free-flowing forgiveness are just such empty words whether said, sung or prayed.
On Wings of Eagles 