One of the most important character traits that a human being can have is dependability. Yes, human beings are fallen and broken and defective creatures. And no human will ever be able to attain anything resembling perfection or one hundred percent trustworthiness on this earth. The future is always uncertain and impossible to predict. The world will throw things at you that you don’t think you can handle.
And yet you know somewhere deep-down that you can. That God never gives His people anything more than what they can handle as long as they continue to put their trust in Him.
I’m thankful for people in my life. I’m thankful for people being unpredictable and fun and interesting and mysterious and different and new and weird.
But that doesn’t make it any less disappointing when a mind changes, a heart freezes, plans shift and twist, or responsibilities fall away in the wake of personal interest or uncertainty.
I could go on, positively or negatively, but it’s late and my eyes struggle to keep me looking or feeling awake when it gets late these days. So I’ll leave on this note.
If you’ve ever disappointed me, I forgive and have forgiven you. I love the broken because I too am broken, and yet I am loved with a Love so gracious and merciful as to fall on me, a sinner and the chief of sinners. I’ve disappointed people before. I’m no perfect individual, and I’m as hypocritical as the next fallen human being. But, in my mind, forgiving has never meant forgetting. Forgetting is naive, and forgetting contains no justice at all.
Maybe you’re struggling with forgiveness. Maybe you’re on the verge of being disappointed by someone or something, bad news or a bad score. Maybe you, too, could use the devotional of Psalm 51, a Prayer for Forgiveness:
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest […] 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. […] 9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me…
In the word of the psalmist in other passages, selah. Think on these things.
Ashley Huizinga
Young Calvinists 