How easy is it to forgive someone who has harmed you, physically, mentally or emotionally? Our capacity for forgiveness is a mark of our Christian maturity. How much progress have we made in our goal of transforming our character and personality to be like Christ?
When we consider how much we have done wrong (and therefore need to ask God’s forgiveness), it is difficult to rationalise how angry we get when someone else crosses us in some minor way. We find it hard enough to forgive even if they say sorry (and sometimes they even mean it!).
Even harder is unconditional forgiveness. This is especially required, and most difficult to achieve, in family relationships. So many families are broken apart by fathers who won’t talk to sons or mothers who cannot forgive the decisions of their daughters (and all kinds of other permutations). Sometimes the wrong that caused the damage is so far in the past it is difficult to remember what started it. But unless one person takes the first step, the path to reconciliation cannot be travelled.
Forgiving is not the same as forgetting. We can do the first and hope that in time the second will come. But time is not always the ‘great healer’. If we have not forgiven, the passage of time will only allow unforgiveness to fester and do more damage.
Christ is the model of forgiveness. Even though he was betrayed, falsely accused, mocked, beaten and executed in a humiliating manner for a crime he did not commit he was still able to ask:
‘Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing’ Luke 23: 34 (NIV)
Let us put aside our pride and have enough grace to follow this example in some way today.
Dave MacLellan (first published in 2003)
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