One Key To Forgiveness

I was just taking a shower and thinking about this, so here it is.

The other day, a friend of mine reminded me of something hurtful I had said years ago.

This was in the midst of an argument, so emotions were already running high. I had two responses immediately present themselves. I could acknowledge the hurtful thing I said and try to seek forgiveness for it, or I could try to recall something hurtful that my friend has said to me.

Well I was genuinely sorry, so I just apologized and said that it was a horrible thing for me to have said. Perhaps you have said something to a loved one, that came out not only wrong, but hurtful, and probably should not have been said at all. But it leaves the mouth, and then has to be dealt with.

While I was in the shower, I was still tempted to recall something hurtful that my friend had said about me. I know for a fact this friend has said many things that have hurt me, but I still refuse to try to remember any of them. I will not allow myself to try to access those memories.

In "the love chapter", Paul makes this statement.."Love keeps no record of wrongs."

You may have heard a christian say that God forgets your sin when you ask him for forgiveness, but I don't think this is the case. I don't think God "forgets" anything, purposely or not. What the bible says is that "He remembers them no more." Have you ever "lost" your keys? What do you try to do? You begin to try to pull from your mind it's location by recalling and retracing your steps, because it's likely that your brain actually does know where the keys are, you just have to try to remember where you left them.

Forgetting is something that happens, remembering is something you actively engage in. So when you forgive someone for something they have said or done, what you are telling them is that you will not keep that thing in remembrance. You will not actively try to hold on or recall that thing for which you are forgiving them, and more importantly, you will treat them as if they have never done that thing.

Should Our Kids Just Obey Us?

...I was in the bathroom, and I was just thinking. When Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, He said, "...and lead us not into temptation...". To me, this seems to imply a few things. One being, that God can lead us into temptation (duh right?). Another being, it must be okay for God to not lead us into temptation (second duh), or why would Jesus have us ask God that.
So we see something about our relationship with our Heavenly Father, that I think we can in turn practice with our own children. Children are tempted to do bad things. We as parents, as we get to know our kids, become well acquainted with them and their desires. So then we are left with two main options in training/dealing with them. We can either remove the temptations from them so they don't even have to deal with them, or we can leave them there, and put them in the predicament of having to obey us rather than their own desires.
So what should we do? Both. Just like God does with us. If we as adults can not bear up under constant temptation, we should not expect our kids to. It's okay, and good, to remove certain things from out of their reach. If you do not, you are for one, being a hypocrite, and two, you run the risk of "exasperating" your kids, which we are commanded not to do.