Finding Compulsion

We received our newest edition of "Simple & Delicious" and this fine cooking publication has a contest where the reader is asked to find "Sandy's Magic Wand." Whenever I get this magazine in the mail I open it ASAP and look for the wand. I usually find the wand but have never won the contest. Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 tries to find the wand. I do not even look at the recipes until the next day. This may be a finding compulsion. I found the wand but I will not list the page number because I do not want to spoil the hunt for the rest of the magazine readers.

Forgiveness

A group of men at my church are reading “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” by Philip Yancey and in chapter 8 he relates a story from “The Sunflower” by Simon Wiesenthal. In this book Wiesenthal hears a death bed confession from a German soldier and asks the young man for forgiveness. When the author tries to leave the German soldier grabs his arm. Wiesenthal walked out of the room without replying to the soldier’s plea. He then relates this event to other people around the world and asks if he should have forgiven the soldier. Yancey is quick to point out that holocaust is an extreme example of forgiveness. The chapter is titled Getting Even.

I am not Jewish and I do not think one person can forgive all of the actions of the Germans but we Christians should forgive people to emulate Jesus’ life. We should forgive out of love for God and other Christians. I am not perfect and may still hold offenses and unforgiveness. It is easier for me to forgive others than to forgive myself. I have been working on remembering that God’s forgiveness is more powerful than my guilt. Yancey writes that forgiveness is an “unnatural act” and I agree. It is easier, in our human flesh, to hold on to offenses than to forgive. So if you get cut off in traffic forgive the other driver.