One day when Junior was fourteen he noticed his father wearing a happy grin
as he came home from work. "Got pinched for speeding, but Jake down at
City Hall got the ticket fixed for me," he said. When Junior was
fifteen, he was with his mother in the family car when she backed into a
tree, doing extensive damage. "We'll say someone rammed into us when we
were parked downtown," she said. "Then we'll collect insurance for it."
When the boy was sixteen, he listened to his grandfather reminiscing about
the "good old days of rationing" when he made $100,000 black-marketing
cars. That same night Uncle John was bragging that in his business he sent
no bills and received only cash. "Why be a sucker and let the Internal
Revenue Service get all my money?" he asked. When Junior turned
eighteen, his family pulled every possible string to get a scholarship at
an Ivy League school. They even lied about the family income to make it
seem that their son needed financial aid.
When the young man had a rough time
scholastically, he bought the answers to a calculus exam from an
upperclassman. Junior was caught and expelled. When he returned home, his
mother burst into hysterical weeping over the disgrace he had caused. "How
could you have done this to us?" she sobbed. "This isn't the way we raised
you."
Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a
quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
(Colossians 3:13)
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving
one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. (Ephesians
4:32)
A
The father
regretted the way he had treated his son and began to search for him.
After several months, he still had not been able to locate the young man.
Finally, as a last ditch effort, he placed the following ad in the
classified section of a Madrid newspaper: "Dear Paco, meet me in front of
the newspaper office at noon. All is forgiven. I love you. Your father."
By twelve o'clock the next day, there were over eight hundred men named
Paco gathered outside the newspaper building. Every one of them was
looking for forgiveness from his father.
A
"Do you remember your father?" asked the
magistrate. "I remember him well, your Honor," came the reply. Then
trying to probe the offender's conscience, the judge said, "As you are
about to be sentenced, and as you think of your wonderful dad, what do you
remember most clearly about him?"
There was a pause; then the judge
received an answer he had not expected.
"I remember, sir, when I went to
him for advice, he looked up at me from the book he was writing and said,
'Run along, boy, I'm busy!' When I went to him for companionship, he turned
me away, saying, 'Run along, son; this book must be finished!' Your honor,
you remember him as a great lawyer; I remember him as a lost friend."
The
magistrate muttered to himself, "Alas! Finished the book, but lost the
boy!"
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall
he also reap. (Galatians 6:7)
Forgiveness
Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.
(Colossians 3:21)
Lost in the Shuffle
Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my
mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of
old: Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We
will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come
the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he
hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law
in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known
to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the
children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their
children: (Psalm 78:1-6)