Journeying and Journaling through Matthew
Jesus talks today about forgiveness. I think sometimes we get the idea of forgiveness confused with other ideas.
Sometimes we confuse it with being taken advantage of. We think we should just forgive every wrong that is done to us and that somehow makes us the better person. We decide to not deal with or address the problem at all. If we ignore the problem, then we have just forgiven them and moved on. Except we haven’t.
On the other side of things, we sometimes conflate forgiveness with revenge. We go back to the old ideas of an eye for an eye. We want to make sure we are not taken advantage of, so we try to be sure that those who have wronged us pay for what they have done. We are sure to exact revenge for the ways in which we have been hurt. Once we exact our revenge, then everything will be forgiven. Except it won’t.
Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t talk about forgiveness in either of these ways. He does not want us to be doormats, nor does he want us to be vigilantes
. It’s also not a tit-for-tat situation. I can forgive someone, as long as and only as much as, they are willing to forgive me. Which is really good since I need God’s forgiveness and he doesn’t need forgiveness from me at all.
I think, instead, that God sees forgiveness as a gift. A gift he first gives to us. Freely and without strings attached. Since God doesn’t need our forgiveness, it isn’t so much about forgiving as much as we are forgiven, but rather forgiving others because we have been forgiven by God. We are only able to offer forgiveness to others, if we are willing and able to accept the forgiveness that God freely gives us.
Throughout our lives we will find ourselves on both sides of forgiveness. Both needing to ask for forgiveness and needing to offer forgiveness to others. Both sides have their challenges. And both sides have their rewards. And no matter if you are doing the forgiving or asking for forgiveness, they both require you to move toward the person you have had conflict or issue with.
If you have hurt someone, you need to approach them, move toward them, express your remorse, and ask for forgiveness. And when you have been wronged, you will also need to move toward the person who has hurt you. Sometimes you need to move toward them and let them know they have hurt you. And if they come to you first, you will also need to move toward them to offer your forgiveness.
In both of these instances, when we are moving toward someone, we need to get our hearts right first. We need to be sure we are moving in the spirit of reconciliation, of mercy, and of humility. True forgiveness isn’t about winners and losers. It’s about repairing your relationship so that you are both back on even ground. Both back to a place of understanding and compassion for each other.
Several years back, a good friend and I had a falling out. It was pretty big. I wasn’t sure either of us could get past it. Both of us were pretty stubborn about our positions and we had both been hurt by the other person’s stance. We moved away from each other because of the opinions we had, the words we had said, and the hurt feelings that had ensued.
My wife is particularly good at seeing multiple sides to a situation and she is great at striving for harmony in relationships. She often helps me to find ways to identify the positives in an issue in a productive way. She did that with this situation. She was able to validate my feelings and my experience, while also helping me to see the other side of the situation. Then she helped me think about what I wanted as an outcome. Did I want to be the winner and stand my ground on the issue, possibly creating a rift too big to bridge? Or did I want to try to repair the friendship, possibly needing to soften my stance and admit my fault in the situation?
I decided to move toward my friend and ask for forgiveness. When I went to her expressing sorrow for my actions, she could either move toward me or away from me. She could decide that she wanted to take a stand and stay away from me, or she could take a step toward me trying to understand my side of things. We were able to walk toward each other and repair our friendship. We were able to find ourselves back on common ground.
Forgiveness is tough. It’s about taking a risk. Letting go of the hurt, and possibly opening up yourself to being hurt again. But on the flip side of that, I want to be able to be forgiven when I have hurt someone. I want the opportunity to correct the situation and heal the hurt. I want to be able to move together again. And that is what forgiveness is about. The gift of opening up our hearts and making connections again. Once we open our hearts to the gift that God gives us through forgiveness, then we can more freely offer those gifts to others.