An African Christian leader gave this testimony. “One day, when I had just finished taking a service in the church, I came home to find my little son had been speared. He was dying in his Mother’s arms while she was vainly trying to push back the intestines which were protruding from the gash in his abdomen. Two things were uppermost in mind: distress at the loss of my only son, and fury against the perpetrator of the deed.
“’I must get away from myself and think this thing through before I do anything ’, I thought, so I went right away and knelt down to pray. At once I saw the Cross afresh, and my Savior dying there for me, and then suddenly I realized something else: the anguish of God the Father at the death of his Son, of whom I was the guilty murderer. I saw the spear that wounded his side, and then I heard his voice saying, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’. I was quite broken down at the thought of what God had done for me, and all the feelings of hate and bitterness for the man who killed my son melted away.
“Meanwhile, the man who had speared the child had been caught. He was being held by a host of men all shouting at once, and holding spears, axes and knives, waiting for me, as the father of the child to give the word to dispatch. I walked up to them and told them to put their weapons down, then I said to the man, ‘As God has forgiven me, so I forgive you.’” Grace in the wilderness.
