Forgiven. Forgive?
As I grow older and accumulate an ever-increasing number of social interactions, the more I tend to think about forgiveness. It’s a simple math problem where every day I gain more time to mess up and others enjoy more opportunities to offend me.
Henri Nouwen has a wonderful line or two about God’s forgiveness.
This morning I meditated on God’s eagerness to forgive me, revealed in the words of Ps.103: “As the distance of east from west, so far from us does he place our faults.” In the midst of all my distractions, I was touched by God’s desire to forgive me again and again…God is always there to embrace me and let me start afresh.
God sets us, time and again, at a place of freedom through his forgiveness in Jesus, and from that re-starting line, he calls us to springboard in the same ways toward others. So Jesus says, when asked by Peter whether he should forgive someone seven times, that the number is more like seventy times seven, or endlessly. In Peter’s defense, if my toes are stepped on by the same chucklehead in the same way even a couple of times, I’m in not much of a mood to forgive.
But Jesus calls us to look to others through the lens of how we have been forgiven. That’s the point of the parable of the unforgiving servant, who, after being freed from a huge debt, tossed another into debtor’s prison for a paltry amount owed. The gift was lost on the man.
Looping back to Ps.103, it’s worth reading parts of it again about how God has treated us.
God forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases. He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies. He fills my life with good things and my youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
The LORD is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever.
He doesn’t punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.
I wonder if the reason I have trouble at times forgiving others is that I really don’t understand how Love has driven forgiveness down into my core and is a key part of the “new creation” in me. When I withhold forgiveness from others I deny that new identity as a free person. God released me from my sins but also from guilt and shame that comes with it, and with that freedom comes an unleashing of the same toward others.
Simply, a forgiven person forgives.
Often, when I’m offended I just want to get even, but really, deep down I know my desire to get even can never be met. If there is to be peace, someone has to take the loss. That’s just what Jesus did for us on the cross, he took on himself what rightly was due to us. Then the call to us is, again, “Follow me.”
When we repeat the disciple’s prayer and say, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” we proclaim a new way of doing life that refuses to separate the vertical part of me from the horizontal. This proves to be a lifelong struggle to live a life that resembles more and more of who God says we are. Only then will we release others from our demands of them before we will extend forgiveness to them.
A lifelong struggle, but worth it.
Perhaps today, spend a few minutes reviewing in your mind your forgiveness in Jesus. Imagine a huge debt wiped away with only the challenge to go and imitate that in the many small ways we can forgive. Now, take that mindset out for a test-drive, thinking of the one who you, as a Jesus-follower, can forgive. Go a bit farther tomorrow and the days to follow. In time, we will become more of that person he says you are.
Music is always good
Funnies? Sure, you betcha
Responses to questions on 5th and 6th grade science tests:
- Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why you should.
- The cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation. Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things people forget to put the top on.
- Water vapor gets together in a cloud. When it is big enough to be called a drop, it does.
- Mushrooms always grow in damp places, which is why they look like umbrellas.
- A monsoon is a French gentleman.
- The word "trousers" is an uncommon noun because it is singular at the top and plural at the bottom.
- To keep milk from turning sour, keep it in the cow.
- When planets run around and around in circles, we say they are orbiting. When people do it, we say they are crazy.
- For asphyxiation, apply artificial respiration until the patient is dead.
- Thunder is a rich source of loudness.
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The judge warned the witness, “Do you understand that you have sworn to tell the truth?"
"I do.”
"Do you understand what will happen if you are not truthful?"
"Sure,” said the witness. "My side will win."