“For you were formerly darkness, but now you are a light in the Lord; walk as children of light.” Ephesians 5:7 (NASB)
Just because I am a born-again Christian does not mean I don’t have struggles. One that I remember clearly was when a young teenage boy had beaten up one of our sons in school with a hard object. He hurt him pretty bad. As a mother this was hard to take, but God gave me grace to forgive.
Not long after this had happened, the young teen came to our home and asked for my son. At the time, I was having a bad day and was tired. I grumbled at him and said, “What do you want here? He’s not home. Go away!” So, the teen went away.
A few minutes later God’s Holy Spirit spoke to my heart about my attitude and rude words. I felt convicted and felt so awful. I told my
husband, Bert, to pray with me. We prayed for this young teen, that there would be another opportunity to talk to him. A few days later he came back and, thank God, our prayer was answered!
This is the conversation that he and I had. I said, “I was really mad at you for what you did. That’s why I even laid charges against you.
But I dropped the charges, as God would not let me do that, and this is the reason why.
“I read in the Bible how people beat up Jesus Christ, God’s own Son, and God forgave those people. So now I want to tell you that I
forgive you for what you did to my son. I am sorry for being rude to you. Will you also forgive me? I am a Christian and I love Jesus. Now
I want to tell you that Jesus loves you and wants to be your friend, so you can have everlasting life in Heaven with Him, if you give your life to Him.”
– Liz Genaille
Council Fire is a collaboration with Intertribal Life Ministries and Native Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.
The Council Fire Daily Devotional Book Set is available on the Intertribal Life Ministries website.
Learn more about Council Fire at councilfire365.org