Some offenses and wrongs are difficult for me to turn loose.

Oh, I like to think I’ve forgiven. I like to think I’m big enough and strong enough and mature enough to get over it. But sometimes I allow those wrongs and offenses to stick around like the good friends they aren’t.

In Proverbs 20 I read this morning:

“It is an honour for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will be meddling” (3).

That reminded me of a verse I read yesterday:

“The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression” (Proverbs 19:11).

Without question, I need a greater supply of (or at least, a greater yielding to) God’s discretion. How else shall I be able to cease from strife and pass over a transgression while deferring my anger?

That is solely the Lord’s work.

“Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?” (Proverbs 20:9).

Not I!

“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).

Yes!