“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” I recite that line as part of the Lord’s Prayer most Sunday mornings at church, and yet no matter how familiar it is, that phrase always stings a little. It reminds me that God expects us to forgive others just as he has freely forgiven us. But it’s safe to say that for most of us, our track record when it comes to extending grace and forgiveness to people who have wronged us is decidedly mixed.

But here’s a new wrinkle to consider: what if it’s too late to extend forgiveness, because the person who hurt us is dead or gone? What if we hurt somebody who is no longer around to hear our apology or our plea for forgiveness?

Charles Swindoll addresses this question today in Day by Day:

I suggest you share your burden of guilt with someone whom you can trust—your spouse, a counselor, your pastor. Be specific and completely candid. Pray with that person and confess openly the wrong and the guilt of your soul. In such cases prayer and the presence of an understanding, affirming individual will provide the relief you need so desperately.

After David had indirectly murdered Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, his guilt was enormous. Adultery and hypocrisy on top of murder just about did him in. Finally, when he was caving in, he broke his silence and sought God’s forgiveness but Uriah was not there to hear his confession. He had been dead almost a year. The broken king called on the prophet Nathan and poured out his soul, “I have sinned….” Nathan followed quickly with these words: “The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.”

Death or geographical distance can disrupt the critical act of reconciliation between two people. But God’s grace is greater yet. If your conscience burns over an apology never offered or forgiveness never extended, it’s not too late to bring it to God and find peace.

I’ll be honest — I grabbed this for the eye candy and the title, but click the ‘via’ link and you can go to the source and read the great post behind it!

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…

Living as I do in rural Wisconsin, I’m frequently blessed by a beautiful sky in my comings and goings and it frequently gives me pause to stop and think about how blessed I am to be where I’m at. You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like more…

Living as I do in rural Wisconsin, I’m frequently blessed by a beautiful sky in my comings and goings and it frequently gives me pause to stop and think about how blessed I am to be where I’m at. You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like more…

A news report that challenges conventional wisdom, especially one about a personal/cultural topic like religion, is often rich fodder for online conversation. This was the case last week as a Pew Research Center survey showing that atheists and agnostics were more knowledgeable about religion than followers of major faiths drew significant attention.

For the week of Sept. 27 to Oct. 1, almost a quarter (23%) of the news links on blogs were to a Los Angeles Times story about the survey, making it the No. 1 subject, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that non-believers were able to answer more questions about religion correctly than believers, even when one controlled for educational background. It also showed that people were ill-informed on some of the questions related to their own religion. A majority of Protestants, for example, were unable to identify Martin Luther as the primary figure behind the Protestant Reformation. (The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Project for Excellence in Journalism are both are part of the Pew Research Center.)

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…

More than 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each went to people who were either dead or in prison, a government investigator says in a new report.

The payments, which were part of last year’s massive economic recovery package, were meant to increase consumer spending to help stimulate the economy.

But about $18 million went to nearly 72,000 people who were dead, according to the report by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general. The report estimates that a little more than half of those payments were returned.

An additional $4.3 million went to more than 17,000 prison inmates, the report said. Most of the inmates, it turns out, were eligible to get the payments because they were newly incarcerated and had been receiving Social Security before they were locked up.