The past month or so I’ve been rediscovering forgiveness. I think, for whatever reason, the power of forgiveness has been lost on me. Maybe that’s partly because we get it all the time...a wave when we cut someone off, a warning when we really deserved a speeding ticket. And we give it all the time...someone bumps into you in a crowded hallway, someone arrives a few minutes late for a coffee date. Forgiveness is everywhere, yet seems to be done so mindlessly.
How can that be? How did we misplaced the importance of forgiveness? In my mind, forgiveness and love go together. Forgiveness is a powerful expression of love.
I’ve been thinking about forgiveness a lot and came to a few conclusions. I didn’t figure out anything amazing or new, but all the same, it’s been a good reminder to myself.
One:
You can only forgive the guilty. Simple truth. It means that someone has done something against you and you have every right to hold that against them. Make them pay a penalty maybe, punish them, or have them be punished. They are guilty; they are in the wrong.
And then forgiveness jumps into the picture. It’s pardoning someone when you don’t have to. It’s refusing to press charges when that’s what the person deserves. It’s stopping your hand when you have every right and desire to strike them.
That’s powerful.
Two:
Forgiveness can only be extended to us when we are in the wrong. When we are guilty. Me? Guilty? It happens.
When I think of forgiveness in that light, like it’s something I don’t deserve, but got anyway - WOW! When I could have been punished, could have been charged, I was given a “get out of jail free” pass instead. I did nothing to deserve it and nothing to earn it.
Offering forgiveness is another powerful thing that I think has been lost on me. There have been recent situations in my life that have caused me to think long and hard on offering forgiveness. Wrongs have been committed, offenses against me; times when I would have been in the right to be mad, upset, angered... but instead, I had the incredible opportunity to respond in love: with forgiveness.
Confession: Forgiveness felt better than getting mad. It felt a lot better than being offended and allowing that to simmer in my heart. Giving forgiveness when it seemed like I had every reason not to was an extension of love and compassion to the receiver, but it was also a blessing to me.
Crazy, right? I so badly wanted to be angry. I deserved to get angry! At least I thought I did...
But do we really “deserve” to be angry? I know I don’t have any right to those things most of the time, especially when I think back on the countless things I’ve been forgiven for. If there were a list of all the times I’ve needed forgiveness when I deserved to pay the price...well, the list would be long - super long. I don’t have the right to withhold forgiveness in light of that.
It hasn’t been a revolutionary realization, but it’s been a good reminder of those few simple truths. Everyone needs to forgive and everyone needs forgiveness.
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchman for the morning, more than watchman for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. -Psalm 130
So next time the words, “I forgive you” are said, think about what that really means. And the power behind it.
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