Do you ever feel like you’ve done something unforgivable? Like you are a disappointment to God because of the sins that you have committed against Him? How could we ever expect the Creator of the universe, who expects us to be perfect like Him, to love us when we have done such wrong (Matthew 5:48)? There may be times in our life when we think: “How our transgressions and our sins weigh on us! We waste away because of them. How can we live” (Ezekiel 33:10, Common English Bible)? But does God feel that way about us? “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked," He reassures us in our pain, “but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die” (Ezekiel 33:11)?

Do you ever find it difficult to talk to God? Is it hard to find the right words to say when you are trying to tell Him you are sorry for what you’ve done and that you need His forgiveness?

Forgiveness is a gift from God that He takes pleasure in giving. His desire is that everyone would turn to Him and ask Him for this wonderful gift (2 Peter 3:9; 1 Timothy 2:4). When we go before our Creator in prayer and lay out all of our sins for Him to see and repent of them, we can have confidence that He will take away every single last one because “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” no matter how small or great those transgressions are in our own eyes (1 John 1:9; Jeremiah 33:8). It was for this very purpose that God brought His Son, Jesus Christ, to this earth. To live a perfect life and die a horrid death. To be the perfect sacrifice made in perfect love so that our sins can be washed away so we, too, can be made perfect (John 17:23, 1 John 2:5).

Do you ever find it difficult to talk to God? Is it hard to find the right words to say when you are trying to tell Him you are sorry for what you’ve done and that you need His forgiveness? God has, for our benefit, preserved many prayers that His servants have prayed to Him, calling on Him and asking for His mercy in their time of need. Job, when he feared that God had turned His back on him because of the sins he unknowingly committed, prayed: “How many are my iniquities and sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin” (Job 13:23). When David felt the anxieties of sin in his life, he prayed to God through the songs that he wrote. His lyrics were pleas to his Creator to give him mercy. “Remember, O LORD, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses,” he would have sung, as if to remind God of His own promises (Psalm 25:6). “Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions,” he pleaded in his distress, “and forgive all my sins” (Psalm 25:7; Psalm 25:18). David asked God to wash him clean from his sins and asked the Almighty to “create in [him] a clean heart” (Psalm 51:2; Psalm 51:10). He knew that with God there is forgiveness.

When we pray to God, if we are lacking in the right words to say, we can turn, in our Bible, to the prayers of the righteous who came before us. We can pray similar prayers of forgiveness to our Heavenly Father, confessing our specific sins and asking Him for the same gift of forgiveness He has given to so many others. We do this in faith, trusting that the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed for the specific purpose of forgiving sins has been applied to our specific sins, and is able to cover every single sin that we confess before God (Hebrews 9:14; 1 John 3:5). When we are at a loss for words, we can turn to God’s own words and remember that He has said, “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins.” We are in need of His forgiveness and He is happy to give it to us when we come before Him with our prayers of forgiveness.