Devotion - Wednesday, October 30

Our Tuesday evening Bible Study discussed atonement last evening.  As part of the discussion, we wrote on pieces of paper something of which we are ashamed, embarrassed - some sin that we need to confess.  I assured everyone that no one was going to read the slips, but several insisted on folding the pieces of paper numerous times - making a tight little knot.

 

We placed the slips in a paper bowl, proceeded outside and set fire to the slips of paper.  All this was to symbolize God's eagerness to forgive us.

I was the one who had planned this activity, so I knew what was coming.  What I had not anticipated (and what caught my attention) was the difficulty with which the pieces of paper folded tightly caught fire.  I commented on it last night.  It is as if the sins which we are so desperate that no one discover are also those which is it most difficult to know have been forgiven.

It is easy to talk about forgiveness.  We can even believe that God forgives the sins of those around us.  But when it comes to those things we have so deeply hidden from others that we seldom admit them to ourselves - realizing forgiveness is a difficult thing.

God's forgiveness is real.