It's amazing how God teaches you things about life in the strangest situations...
I'm going to share with you a story about how I learned a lot about forgiveness and repentance by observing my two sons late last week.
So my sons are very close in age. One is 5 and the other is about to turn 4. So it's roughly a year and a half that separates them.
And you know how brothers and all siblings can be when they are that close in age.
They are best of friends and the worst enemies. All in the same hour.
So last week, my youngest son was pushed by his big brother and he took a swipe at his face. My son who is older, got a nice little cut on his nose from it and as you could imagine...There was lots of tears.
Long story short, we disciplined them both and life kept one going as it does in the household. But what happened during that evening, blew me away and I'm still thinking about it days later.
We were tucking the boys into bed and my youngest simply gets out of his bed, walks over to his older brother, gave him a hug and said he was sorry.
This wasn't my wife and I demanded that he apologize to his brother for hurting him. It genuinely was...Repentance. He truly felt sorry for what he did and wanted the one he hurt, to know how he felt.
My older son, accepted the apology without a waiting a minute, told him it was o.k. and hugged him back. Forgiveness.
To me, this was an object lesson in the way we are to go to God for forgiveness, and He accepts because we are truly repentant.
Now I'm not saying my kids are holier than thou or anything of the sort, I'm just amazed at how God shows us these examples of his mercy in our every day lives.
These two kids, who at times you would think are sworn adversaries, literally put their pride and ego aside, and followed the example of our Saviour.
I'm still amazed at it all, and ever so grateful. Obviously for my kids, because that was amazing to witness. But to our Lord and Saviour....For being the example for us to follow!
Isn't it amazing the things we can learn from our kids?
What a beautiful moment to witness! If only more adults could live such innocence and compassion and forgiveness towards each other...oh what a different world we'd live in!
I'm still in shock. But you are so right, we can learn a lot from the younger ones!