forgive us our trespasses

Here's where Jesus cuts to the heart. He wants us to ask God to forgive us our trespasses which I know for a fact we all need to do on a daily basis. Every morning, every evening I spend time in this portion of prayer replaying my shortcomings of the day and asking forgiveness. But, Jesus takes it one step further by saying, "as we forgive those that trespass against us."
Say what? So we are supposed to ask God to forgive us based on the way we forgive others? If that was the case we might as well not even put this part of the prayer in there. I know I have struggled with this area in life many times before. I have asked God to forgive me of something I've done and laid my head on the pillow knowing I still held a grudge against someone else. Who are we to ask God to forgive us if we can't do it ourselves?
The book I am reading, "So you don't want to go to church anymore" deals with a lot of this. A lot of the hurts that can come from being on a church staff. Many times we get hurt by the people we pour our lives into the most. They turn on us seemingly overnight and in doing so many times they turn a whole body of believers against us in the process. This is definitely something that I have dealt with and I came to the realization the best thing for me to do is pray for them and then let them know how hurt I was and that I forgive them. I thanked that person for the help through the years and all the good aspects of the relationship and let them know I forgave them and prayed for them on a regular basis. It's then that I started having an easier time forgiving myself for my shortcomings. It's then that I felt like I for once deserved 1% of the forgiveness the God gave us through His Son dying on the cross.
So, if you're having a hard time forgiving yourself for something. Maybe you should work harder on getting rid of those old grudges. On cleaning out the guilt box so that you can face your own mistakes. Then you will feel the refreshment of God forgiving you for your shortcomings.
This is much like the parable JEsus told in Matthew 18. In this parable a servant pleads with his master to forgive a debt he had, and the master grants him his wish. THen, in turn the servant goes to another servant who owed him money and demanded it choked him and had him thrown in jail.
Is that not the perfect picture of how we beg and plead with God to forgive us and carry grudges, sometimes those same grudges are running through our heads when we are praying for forgiveness.
So make sure you get rid of those old grudges before you try to get rid of your own faults. It's much better that way!