The verse in Matthew (5:24) has always struck me as being particularly important when trying to mend fences with someone, and yet I rarely abide by it. I usually find myself going to God first, then if I still feel the need to go to the person I will. When asking for forgiveness do you ask it first of the person then of God? If so, how were you taught to do so? If not, how do you reconcile with God?
2007-11-15 09:17:51 · 3 answers · asked by Tonya in TX - Duck 6 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/matt/5/24#24
2007-11-15 09:33:21 · update #1
Interesting, what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Both need to take place. You need to express your remorse to God in prayer, the person you might have offended and to your Bishop or minister or priest if it is serious. If it is a minor offence, we often repent quickly and immediately ask forgiveness from the person we hurt. "I'm so sorry I forgot to pick you up last night" or "I'm so sorry I broke your lawnmower when I borrowed it yesterday". However, if the harm was more subtle and lasted over a greater length of time, we often supress our feelings of guilt and fail to admit our error. Usually this requires time for the seriousness of our act to sink in. We feel remorse and pray for the feeling to go away. Then the Spirit makes us realize that the feeling will not go away until we go back to the person we hurt and ask their forgiveness and what we can do to make it right. "Thirty years ago, I stole some candy from your store, how can I make it up to you? Can you forgive me and accept my repayment?" It could be something along those lines, even though that is a rather simple example. Perhaps we really picked on a school mate when we were young and twenty or thirty years later we meet again and your conscience bothers you until you finally admit to them that you were really stupid as a kid and pray that they can forgive you.
Bottom line, it requires both steps and it doesn't really matter what order they are in. It would be best if we acknowledged our error immediately and corrected it promptly with the person we hurt. Then we can go to God in prayer and rehearse the whole situation with Him and feel the spirit speaking peace to your soul about it.
2007-11-15 10:23:51 · answer #1 · answered by rac 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
I usually do as you do--I'll go off somewhere to be alone, and just 'talk' to God first. I allow myself to feel as miserable and upset as I want to be, to get that out of my system. I believe that, if you wrong someone, you have to get your feelings for yourself dealt with first, so you can be in relative equilibrium when you talk to the person you've offended or wronged. When you talk to that other person, you need to be thinking more of him than of yourself.
2007-11-15 09:33:40 · answer #2 · answered by Chantal G 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
God does something special.
2007-11-15 09:25:50 · answer #3 · answered by God is love. 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋