OOPS!  This Thought for the Week article should have been submitted by Friday, May 3, but here I am on Saturday afternoon and have only just remembered that deadline.

I do hope I haven’t missed the boat, and that the editor will just shake his head and forgive me.

I began to wonder why I had forgotten this important task. Was it that with advancing years, my brain just doesn’t register what tasks need to be done? Or was it that subconsciously I didn’t want to do it, or worse, couldn’t be bothered so that it slipped to the back of my mind?

In the good old days, preparing and writing sermons, talks and articles like this one were a weekly necessity so they became an ingrained habit, and I never forgot to do them (at least, I don’t remember if I ever did forget!).

Someone once told me that it’s very easy to slip into bad habits, but very difficult to acquire good ones and stick to them.

Yet we instinctively know that when individuals consciously form good habits of body and mind and relationships, we and those around us are happier and healthier.

Remembering doesn’t just happen: it takes thought and an effort of will. That’s probably why the word “remember” appears at least 230 times in the Bible, often as a command.

So before we get all self-righteous and annoyed about someone else forgetting something, let’s remember to forgive others in just the same way as God forgives us, whenever we forget his important place in our lives.