On Tuesday, Troy Spratling, an engineering technology professor, will give his devotional address which will center on being forgiving and not taking offense.
Spratling will focus on the different settings in which college students take offense and what they can do to overcome those situations. He felt inspired to speak on this topic due to the New Testament story in which Jesus Christ, upon the cross, asks God to forgive the Roman soldiers.
“How could the Savior, on the cross, ask the Lord to ‘forgive them for they know not what they do’?” Spratling said. “What a higher level of understanding. We all wrestle this one way or another, at one time or another.”
He invites students and faculty to participate in the discussion board and ponder the scripture John 16:1, to better prepare to receive his message on Tuesday.
As a professor, he has seen students offended by one another, and he hopes his message will help individuals be more forgiving.
“Colleagues can rub each other wrong, students can rub each other wrong and obviously that happens day to day,” Spratling said. “I also see some wonderful things when people say, ‘Hey, I didn’t mean it quite this way.'”
Spratling has worked at BYU-Idaho for 23 years. Apart from teaching automotive courses, he has been a department chair as well as an associate dean. He served a mission in San Antonio, Texas from 1981-1983 and has been married to his wife, Shelly, for over 30 years.