Friday
“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king
who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand
talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the
master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be
sold to repay the debt. “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient
with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him,
canceled the debt and let him go.
“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who
owed him a hundred denari. He grabbed him
and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. “His fellow servant fell to his knees
and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ “But he refused. Instead, he went off
and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had
happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master
everything that had happened.
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said,
‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your
fellow servant just as I had on you?’
In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until
he should pay back all he owed.
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you
forgive your brother from your heart.” - Matthew 18:23-35
Forgiveness is vital, but it
can be difficult. It’s hard to forgive the person who has hurt you. Sometimes
we can’t help but to say, "I can't forgive you right now. I am that hurt.
I've got to heal a bit before I will have the strength I'll need to forgive
you."
Think about this way, if
someone is mangled in a car accident, the first priority is to get the physical
wounds healed. There may be mental wounds like post-traumatic stress disorder
that will need to be healed with therapy eventually. But what if you were a therapist passing by the accident,
would you kneel down next to the wrecked car and begin by saying, "Let's
talk about this accident so you can deal with it in a healthy psychological
way." Of course not! Even a
therapist would need to grab a hankie and staunch the flow of blood first. You can get to the psychological and
spiritual healing later.
So it is also with great
spiritual wounds: the immediate injuries need to be tended to first. Then,
sometime later, you may be in a position to move on toward forgiving the one
who inflicted the wounds. And, of course, there are any number of phenomena
that can make forgiveness a long, tortured process. It is exceedingly hard to
forgive people who refuse to admit they were wrong. It is very difficult to
offer forgiveness to people who slap the gift of grace out of your hand saying,
"Keep your forgiveness! I don't want it!" It is difficult to forgive
the person who won't speak with you, refuses to look at you or meet with you.
Forgiveness is difficult
because forgiveness is suffering, as Timothy Keller reminds us in his great
book, The Reason for God in the
chapter “The (True) Story of the
Cross” When we forgive we
forgo our opportunity to return affliction on our perpetrator. We assume
ourselves the debt of the transgression against us. But this is exactly
what the Lord God did for us on the cross. And if we claim His
forgiveness without forgiving others while remaining petty, grudge-holding
people, then we do not fully understand the cross and we retain upon ourselves
the death penalty for our sins.
Yes, forgiveness can be hard,
but it is necessary if we are to fully live into Christ’s call upon us. So what
would the world be like if everyone practiced forgiveness as Jesus
instructs? How much closer might
we come to bringing the kingdom of God here on earth? Yes, forgiveness is hard, and it can sometimes take a
while. Forgiveness can be a
process and it may require a needed conscious choice to forgive over and over
again (even more than 490 times if needed!). Some of us are victims of
unspeakable crimes and the passage of time provides little healing to those
wounds. In such cases, forgiveness can take years and require the
help of professional counselors. But what path are you on? Are you
on a path of forgiveness or on a path of a hardening heart? Those are the only
two choices.
Jeff fFrazier
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