Article October 18, 1982 Issue

Father, forgive me!

ARLINE WALKER EVANS

At one time I felt I had been badly wronged, and so I prayed to be able to forgive the one who had hurt me. In retrospect I think I sincerely hoped to be loving toward that individual—to feel forgiveness. However, after praying and finding my peace for a period of days or weeks, I would suddenly have all the negative feelings return and then have to work through the problem again.

My freedom came when I realized I had been praying self-righteously, praying only to forgive someone else when I really needed to ask humbly, "Father, forgive me for believing your good has ever been absent or lost."

When we pray the Lord's Prayer, which Christ Jesus taught, we say, "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."^{Matt. 6:12.} Thus we seek and find a clearer realization of what our debts to God are, and we lose sight of others' debts to us.