My daughter and I arrived at the mall at 3:05 a.m. to snag the best deals at Belk, a local department store, which had opened at 3:00 a.m. To my dismay, there were no parking spots left in the front of the mall. None. Apparently all the folks who had hit the 12 a.m. sales at Wal-Mart and Target and Best Buy were now at the mall. Not to be outwitted, I found a place to park behind the mall even though there were no entrances there to any anchor stores. After all, with my tennis shoes on, I could walk/run the length of the mall in a minute flat.

When we finally got to Belk, we entered an endless sea of women grabbing $19.99 boots as if they were necessary for one’s survival.  Women were tossing boxes to their friends. They were grabbing boxes off tables. Polite pushing and shoving ruled the moment since news had already reached the mall of a man tazered at our local Wal-Mart for fighting with a woman over the last smart phone.  

It was the craziest moment I’ve seen since McRae’s had a Cracker Jack of a Sale the day after Thanksgiving several years ago.  That day, every shopper got a box of Cracker Jack’s upon entrance to the store, one of which had a diamond ring hidden inside. Whoever planned that promotion overestimated the human desire for responsibility and order. I’ve never seen so many Cracker Jacks in my life. They were on the floor, on the tables, and even in the bathroom. Women were tearing those boxes open so fast that you think at least 99% of them had never even seen a diamond ring before. Needless to say, McRae’s never repeated that promotional.

Back to this year, we did manage to get some great boots for $19.99. We did, however, have to wait in longer lines to check out because of our ‘late’ arrival, and we missed the bargains at the other stores because by the time we arrived at our other destinations, they were sold out of most of the ‘must haves’. But my daughter and I had lots of fun. We honored our day after Thanksgiving shopping tradition by driving through Chick-Fil-A for chicken biscuits with honey and more coffee followed by more shopping. Later we returned home for more family food, fun, and football games.

It was a light-hearted day for us. We didn’t mind missing a bargain or two.

This morning, however, I couldn’t help thinking about the more serious moments when we are too late. Times when we don’t awaken soon enough and we miss what God has for us.

At those moments, we often struggle to accept our failures and our humanness. What can we do when we’ve been too late and doors of opportunity have closed?

We can pretend that it doesn’t matter, acting as if we don’t care.

We can ignore the entire matter by refusing to think about it or acknowledge it.

We can become mired in the failure with self-hatred, depression, and/or discouragement.

We can allow our failures, our missed opportunities, our ‘too late’ moments, to teach us and bring godliness and brokenness so that we don’t miss it the next time.

We can trust that someone God can really do what He says and work all things together for our good.

Have you been ‘too late’ to connect to something really good? What will you do with the disappointment and pain? Will your open your heart and ask God to heal the pain and redeem the failures?  

It’s never too late for God to do wonderful things in our hearts and lives. He is the God of new mercies and new beginnings.

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Do you have your list? Did the pictures in your mind come up faster than high-speed internet?

Most of us don’t have any trouble recalling the worst moments of our lives. I imagine that when I asked those questions, you not only recalled the “bad” things you have done, but you also reconnected to some feelings of shame and guilt.

A foundational truth of Christianity is that we come into relationship with God through forgiveness based on the work of Christ. We maintain the flow of fellowship both with God and man by confessing our sins and appropriating the purifying work of Christ into our daily lives.

While we may understand the role of forgiveness in our Christian walk in relation to God and to others, we may find it harder still to be aware of the need to forgive ourselves.

Woven into the fabric of our core belief system may be the unspoken, and often unrecognized, belief that refusing to forgive ourselves shows God that we realize what dirty rotten sinners we really are and agrees with God that we don’t deserve to be forgiven.

And while we are sinners and don’t deserve forgiveness apart from Christ, through Christ we become righteous and through his grace, we are offered forgiveness. Living in that forgiveness means that we acknowledge that God offers us radical, undeserved forgiveness and we cannot make ourselves more deserving of that forgiveness by holding ourselves prisoner to past mistakes.

What are the practical implications in our lives when we have not forgiven ourselves for things for which God has forgiven us?

·         The flow of grace in our hearts is blocked because we are, in essence, saying that our standard is higher than God’s.  The unspoken, unconscious belief is that, “Yes, God has forgiven me, but that is not sufficient to pay for my sin. I must cling to my ‘guilty’ verdict to prove that I know I don’t deserve His forgiveness.” There is a false pride which basically exalts our standard for forgiveness over God’s standard.  It suggests that while God says that Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient for my forgiveness with Him, it is not sufficient for me to forgive myself which basically exalts our own over Christ.

·         Refusing to forgive ourselves keeps us ‘stuck’, joined to the painful event in a way that doesn’t allow us to move forward in our lives.

·         Refusing to forgive ourselves hinders our ability to receive God’s mercy and grace.

·         Mires us in self-condemnation, self-hate, self-rejection, shame and false-guilt.

·         Leads us to believe, at a core level, that God really doesn’t forgive us either.

·         Promotes a wrong view of God as being unreachable, unconcerned or powerless to help.

·         Promotes a wrong view of God as One who desires to condemn and punish us.

·         Leads us to ‘give up’ in our relationship with God.

·         Exalts our penance over Christ’s redemption.

So what is the most stupid thing you’ve ever done? The most harmful? The absolute worst mistake?

As you picture “it” and feel “it”, will you explore whether or not you’ve truly released yourself from “it”?

If you’ve asked for God’s forgiveness through His son Jesus Christ, and made things right with others when needed, forgive yourself.  Step into God’s grace and live in His freedom. Experiencing the full reality of His forgiveness comes when we extend that forgiveness to our own hearts.

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