"A Family Like God's" (Part 14)

Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. (Colossians :12-14 NIV).

As we continue in the series of making our families like God’s family we will look at the ninth principle today: As soon as you realize you’ve made a mistake, admit it and ask for forgiveness. This is especially true when parents are dealing with teenagers. Here’s the principle: The tighter the grip, the more the struggle. One of the ways of relaxing your “grip” is to be able to admit to mistakes and ask for forgiveness. It will amaze you how much more you will be respected and honored. There are three principles that support this truth:

Parents aren’t perfect. In the daily struggles and challenges of parenting, it’s easy to recognize the ways we feel our children have wronged us. A bowl of popcorn dumped out on a freshly vacuumed carpet or a meltdown in the checkout aisle of the market can cause us to focus our energies on the many ways our children aren’t perfect. Yet I find that when I acknowledge my own shortcomings to my children, it reminds me of my imperfections which inspires a spirit of mercy and forgiveness when their imperfections on are on display. It also allows my children to grow up with a healthy perception of me. Everyone makes mistakes – even Dad.

Forgiveness restores relationships. All of us have parenting moments of which we are not proud. We need only access hurtful moments from our own childhoods for a vivid reminder of the power of a parent’s words and actions. But when we operate under the truth that we aren’t perfect and we will make mistakes, we are encouraged to act quickly to make amends with the child we have hurt – both confessing our wrong and seeking forgiveness. In most every relationship, the act of asking for forgiveness for a wrong can go a long way towards healing a wounded spirit.

“Doing” teaches best about the power of forgiveness. I am absolutely certain that the best way to teach a forgiving spirit is to model it. The older we get, the more difficult it can be to acknowledge when we have wronged someone, and our own stubborn pride threatens to preclude us from experiencing the very healthy process of restoring a strained relationship. Humbling myself to ask for my children’s forgiveness often involves a very intentional act of choosing what I know is right over what I feel is right.