“Jump up and touch the ceiling, Jake, and I’ll take you out for an ice cream,” his dad said to 5-year old Jake. With all his might Jake tried and tried. It didn’t take him long to realize he couldn’t come even close to touching the ceiling. His dad was asking him to do something he couldn’t.
In tears he turned to his dad and said “will you help me?” “Sure,” replied dad. And with that he picked up Jake and hoisted him over his head so high that Jake touched the ceiling easily. “Okay,” said dad, “Let’s get some ice cream!”
In Scripture today (Matthew 6:7-15) Jesus tells his disciples to do something they couldn’t do. He told them to pray a prayer that included the request:
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Who wants forgiveness? “I do!” we all shout. Then “jump up and touch the ceiling,” God says—translated: “forgive those who’ve sinned against you.” So we try and try until we realize that God gave us an impossible task.
We can’t forgive others even for the slightest offenses because, as the Bible makes clear, only God can forgive sin. So, do we give up in despair, realizing that we’ll never get the “ice cream cone” of forgiveness from God?
No, we just follow the example of Jake. “God, will you help me?” And sure enough, he picks us up in his mighty hands and lifts us so high that we are able to do what he alone can do—touch the ceiling of forgiving others.
I don’t think Jesus is saying that God will withhold forgiveness until we get strong enough to do the impossible. After all God is full of mercy; he is a God of the possible, not the impossible. When we admit our own powerlessness and humbly admit our limitations, and then ask him for help, he quickly obliges. When we open our own sins and hurts to his love, he begins to lift us up to his level. Somehow his love begins to take over our hearts to the extent that we see, even our worst enemies, from his perspective. We realize that we have the power of God to forgive!
Isn’t it really the Holy Spirit in us who empowers us to forgive others? And let’s not forget that this includes ourselves. Instead of beating on ourselves because of our past sins and mistakes, we let the Holy Spirit lift us to the place where we can completely forgive ourselves and move on with life.
Let’s continue to listen to Jesus:
“If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”
In the end then, God does follow up with a trip to the ice cream store. On the other hand, if we persist in trying to “do what we can’t” guess what? We will spend our lives trying to jump higher and never get our ice cream cone from God.
Jesus told us not to babble on like the pagans. Keep it simple. There are just four things to put on our prayer list: 1. Daily bread (includes all our needs), 2. Forgiveness, 3. His leading in our lives, and 4. Deliverance from the influence and grip of the devil. That’s it! Thank you Jesus for making prayer so simple for us. No need for “grocery lists” of requests. Just four basic needs to present Him, each of which is something we cannot attain on our own. We are not strong enough, on our own, to provide for all our needs, forgive our sins, walk the right path, or defeat the devil.
So we keep asking God to lift us up and give us the power to do the things we can’t.
“You have received a spirit of adoption as son (and daughters) through which we cry: ‘Abba, Father!’” (Romans 8:15) Alleluia! Alleluia!
