Good Morning Brown Clee!

Today I would like us to continue to think about our Christian value of Forgiveness – and how important it is to give people a second chance.  We all make mistakes or mess things up – and sometimes we can get so entangled in our mistakes that we make things worse – a bit like when a fly gets stuck in a spider’s web. It’s not much fun to watch. The fly struggles and buzzes to no avail.

The more it struggles, the more entangled it becomes. Finally, the spider comes along and winds the fly up in sticky thread to enjoy for tea later!  This is a good illustration of how we can get entangled in doing wrong.

Another example of getting entangled in doing wrong is Pinocchio – have a watch of this clip and see what happens when he tells a lie!

Oh dear!!  Silly Pinocchio! Lies tend to entangle us. In Pinocchio’s case, telling lies made his nose grow, and it grew so long that he even ended up with a bird’s nest at the end of it! It shows us that lies can lead to more lies, which become more and more complicated. Sometimes when we start to do something wrong, it can be difficult to get out of it…..but owning up and being honest is a good first step to forgiveness.

The Bible is full of stories about people who really messed up. Jesus understood that this would happen. Part of the Easter story is about one of Jesus’ best friends called Peter, and he messed up in a big way!

But this is not the end of the story. Jesus wasn’t finished with Peter. He understood how easy it is to get things wrong and mess up. Jesus wanted to forgive Peter and for things to be put right again. Following Peter’s denial of Jesus, Jesus was killed – Peter must have felt awful.

However, three days later, Peter heard the great news that Jesus had come back to life. Later, Jesus spent some time with Peter and on one occasion, took Peter for a walk, asking him if he loved him and wanted to follow him. Peter said that he did want to follow Jesus and that he loved him very much. Jesus made it clear that he forgave Peter and from there, Peter became one of the first leaders of the Christian Church.

Just like Peter’s lie, a small wrong can spread out like ink on a page or ripples in water.

The wrong can become bigger and bigger and affect more and more people. However, we can all be forgiven and we can all be forgiving kinds of people.

Have a think about whether you need to forgive someone and give them another chance, like Jesus did to Peter…..

Prayer of the Day

Dear God,
We know that we do wrong things at times, sometimes little things, sometimes big things.
We also know that little wrong things don’t take long to grow bigger.
Help us to be quick to say sorry and to ask forgiveness.
Help us to be quick to forgive when people do something wrong to us.
Thank you that you love to forgive us when we ask.
Amen.