Perhaps you’ve seen the now-famous Vietnam War picture of Kim Phuc, the young, naked girl, running in terror from her village, hoping to escape the horror of napalm that was burning her skin. The man in the plane was John Plummer. Assured that no civilians lived in the village, he had ordered the attack.
John Plummer was an American who, in the heat of wartime, almost killed her. She was Vietnamese, and when the napalm started to fall from his plane, she ran for her life.
According to a story in the Minnesota Christian Chronicle, Kim Phuc was invited to Washington in 1996 to speak at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. As she spoke, she said she would forgive the pilot if they were to meet.
Incredibly, John Plummer was in the audience. He had heard that Kim would be there, so be came to hear her speak. After the ceremony, the two met. Plummer repeated, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Kim replied, “It’s all right. I forgive.”
“Even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do” (Colossians 3:13).
Before Ansel Adams, the well-known landscape photographer and conservationist, became famous, he studied piano and showed some talent. At one of his first recitals he played Chopin’s Nocturne in F Major.
“In some strange way,” he said, “my right hand started off in F-sharp major while my left hand behaved well in F major. I could not bring them together. I went through the entire nocturne with the hands separated by a half-step.”
The next day, someone walked up to him and jokingly commented, “You never missed a wrong note!”
Have you ever felt that way about your Christian life? You want to live for God and please Him, but some days it seems that you “never miss a wrong note.” You feel like such a failure. You may have even asked, “How can God care about a sinner like me?”
The Psalmist declares, “Good and upright is the Lord; therefore He teaches sinners in the way. The humble He guides in justice, and the humble He teaches His way” (Psalm 25:8-9).
It sounds too good to be true. Yet countless sermons have been preached to convince guilt-ridden individuals that it is true. God longs to forgive sinners! Many of these sermons emphasize the idea that God not only forgives the sinner, but He also forgets the sin.
Think about it. The idea that God forgets my sins isn’t very reassuring. After all, what if He suddenly remembered? In any case, only someone imperfect can forget, and God is perfect.
The Bible says, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more” (Hebrews 8:12). God doesn’t say He will forget our sins – He says He will remember them no more! His promise not to remember them ever again is stronger than saying He’ll forget them. Now that reassures me!
A farmer owned an old donkey. The donkey fell into the farmer’s well. The farmer heard the donkey braying. After carefully assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the donkey, but decided that neither the donkey nor the well was worth the trouble saving.
Instead, he called his neighbors together and told them what had happened…and enlisted them to help haul dirt to bury the old donkey in the well and put him out of his misery. Initially, the old donkey was hysterical! But as the farmer and his neighbors continued shoveling and the dirt hit his back, a thought struck him. It suddenly dawned on him that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back, he should shake it off and step up. It wasn’t long before the old donkey, battered and exhausted, stepped triumphantly over the wall of that well! What seemed like it would bury him, actually blessed him…all because of the manner in which he handled his adversity.
Be at least as smart as that old donkey. The next time trouble seems to bury you, remember to shake it off and step up.
The story is told that just before Leonardo da Vinci painted the faces of the disciples on ‘The Last Supper’ painting, da Vinci had a terrible argument with a fellow artist. He determined to paint his fellow artist’s face into the portrait as that of Judas Iscariot, and thus take revenge by handing down the man in infamy and scorn to succeeding generations. Thus the face of Judas was one of the first he finished, and everyone could easily recognize the face of the painter with whom he had quarreled.
However, when he came to paint the face of Christ he couldn’t make any progress at all. Something seemed to be frustrating even his best efforts. At length he came to the decision that the cause of this difficulty was in his bitterness and lack of forgiveness toward his fellow painter. He came to the conclusion that you cannot at the same time be painting the features of Christ into your own life, and painting another with the colors of hatred and enmity.
Is there someone in your life you need to forgive?
During World War II, Corrie Ten Boom and her sister Betsie were arrested for conceling Jews and were sent to a German concentration camp. Betsie died a slow and terrible death as a result of the cruel treatment.
Then, in 1947, Corrie spoke about God’s forgiveness to a church in Munich. Afterward, a man sought her out. She recognized him as one of the guards who had mistreated her and Betsie. He told her that he had become a Christian, and with extended hand he asked for her forgiveness. Corrie struggled with her feelings, but when she recalled the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:15, she knew she had to forgive. She silently prayed, “Jesus, help me!” and thrust her hand into the hand of her former tormentor.
Someone has said, “Forgiveness is not a case of ‘holy amnesia’ that wipes out the past. Instead, it is the experience of healing that drains the poison from the wound.”
If you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you trespasses (Matthew 6:15).
What do you think of when you read the words of Mr. Donohoe, written in his 1935 will?:
“Unto my two daughters, Frances Marie and Denise Victoria, by reason of their unfilial attitude toward a doting father,…I leave the sum of $1.00 to each and a father’s curse. May their lives be fraught with misery, unhappiness, and poignant sorrow. May their deaths be soon and of a lingering malignant and torturous nature.”
Continuing, he concluded, “May their souls rest in hell and suffer the torments of the condemned for eternity.”
What do you think was going on inside his head and heart? How did this man develop such hatred? If you knew Mr. Donohoe personally, what help could you offfer him?