The Forgiven Tractor Debt

My husband, Jon, and I needed a new tractor bad. Not a want, a need. A new house with 4.5 acres and lots of mowing, hauling, moving snow … you get the picture. We were using an ancient lawn mower that had belonged to Jon’s dad, which sounded like something from the Beverly Hillbillys! My parents offered to buy us a brand new Kubota garden tractor. After much deliberation, Jon decided that we’d accept the gift, but we would pay back the debt on a monthly basis with interest.

A year later, we knew we needed a safer car for me to drive, but we couldn’t really afford both car and tractor payments, so we decided to wait a year for the car. My parents wanted to forgive our debt on the tractor so we could focus extra money on a car. Jon is very frugal and responsible when it comes to debt, but he also struggles with accepting kindness and forgiveness from others. (Don’t tell him I said that!) So, he really struggled with this “forgiveness of debt” from my Dad. My dad kept telling us it was his money and his prerogative to forgive the debt. In the end, Jon allowed us to accept the gift of the “forgiven tractor debt,” and we were able to purchase a newer, safer car to drive.

This led me to thinking about how we are with God’s amazing offer to forgive our debt. We fight him, we think it’s too good to be true, we don’t deserve it, our debt is far too big, we haven’t worked hard enough and the list goes on. Don’t you wonder if God thinks to himself, “It’s my prerogative to do this; who are you to put conditions on it”? He has forgiven our debt because He loves us and because he can. All we have to do is accept it.

Sally Hall