Are We Ready To Forgive? (by Becky)

“For You, Lord, are good and ready to forgive,
and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.”
Psalm 86:5

We have been going through a few Psalms on Tuesday nights in the women’s Bible study.  This last week we were in Psalm 86.  This Psalm is listed as a ‘Prayer of David”.  We don’t know what the circumstances were when David wrote this Psalm, but it would seem that he was in some sort of trouble.  This Psalm is David crying out to God to save him.  David seems pretty confident that God will do just that.

David says for “you are good and ready to forgive”.  David knew first-hand the goodness of God – and His ability to forgive.  That phrase “ready to forgive” makes me think of an expectant waiting.  God is just waiting for us to ask so that He can forgive us!  That is a hard thing for us, as humans, to get our head, or heart, around, because we so often aren’t “ready to forgive”.  It can sometimes take a while for our hearts to soften to be able to forgive someone, and we think it must be the same with God toward us.  I like what one commentator says, “Many wait to repent and ask forgiveness because they think that time might make God more forgiving.  That isn’t possible.  He is ready to forgive now” (D. Guzik).

God is ready to forgive, right now!  It doesn’t matter how we’ve sinned or how many times we’ve sinned, He is ready to forgive, and not only that it also says He is “abundant in mercy to all those who call upon” Him.

How about me?  Am I ready to forgive?  It isn’t always easy, and seems harder, to me at least, to forgive those closest to me.  There are times that I don’t want to let go of the hurt, I want to punish them for hurting me, by not forgiving.  But if I do that, then bitterness will take root and it will be even harder to let go and forgive.  I pray that God will not only teach me how to be ready to forgive, but also that He will remind me that He is there ready to forgive, and abundant in mercy, when I ask.

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
1John 19

by Becky Pham