When you study the lives of those who were greatly used by God in the Bible, you see that they were not spared from hurt, disappointment, or even betrayal. The truth is, if you live long enough, you’ll be wronged by someone. The question is, how will you react? The apostle Paul tells us how we should react: ‘Bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.’ The story is told of two friends who were walking through the desert when they got into an argument. One friend slapped the other in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt. But without saying anything, he wrote in the sand, ‘Today my best friend slapped me in the face.’ They kept walking until they found an oasis. Since they were thirsty, they stopped for water. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire, fell in, and started to drown. His friend then reached out and saved him. That night, he etched this in a stone: ‘Today my best friend saved my life.’ The friend who had first slapped him and then saved him asked, ‘After I hurt you, you wrote in sand. And now you write on a stone. Why?’ He replied: ‘When someone hurts us, we should write it in sand, where the winds of forgiveness can blow and erase it. But when someone does something good for us, we should engrave it in stone where it will be long remembered.’ Mercy forgets wrongs and remembers rights!

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.