The Need For Forgiveness

Forgiveness is often misunderstood. When one forgives they are not saying: "what you did is 'okay'". Nor are they "forgetting" what took place (or the pain that has come along with a hurtful action).

Forgiveness is essential because it frees us from the need (burden) to collect on something that another cannot possibly re-pay: innocence, trust, hope.

Even more, it is in our capacity and availability to forgiveness that we find the forgiving God. In his book, Surprised By Hope, NT Wright writes: "Not to forgive is to shut down a faculty in the innermost person, which happens to be the same faculty that can receive God's forgiveness. It also happens to be the same faculty that can experience real joy and real grief. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ...If you lock up the piano because you don't want to play to somebody else, how can God play to you?"

That is why we pray, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

Maybe today you need to forgive someone who hurt you; a family member that has long since past, an "enemy" of yours, or even more - yourself. In the space of your forgiveness of another may you experience the peace, hope, and love of a forgiving God.

When We Are Wronged (Philemon: A Response Of Hope pt.3)

What do we do when we've been wronged? How should we respond when others have hurt us? Paul's letter to Philemon speaks to these questions (listen to "when you've been wronged" podcast).

We all have people in our life that we have trusted and invested in. Part of our human experience are those moments when our trust in people was taken advantage of...our good nature used and abused.

Sadly, when we are wronged it is not only the immediate pain that we experience, but its lasting consequences that have such a devastating effect. When others inflict hurt on us it changes our perception of people and this world. We become less trusting, slower to invest in others, and increasingly cynical.

In these moments we have a number of various responses. Some of us try to forget, others hold a grudge, and still some decide to fight back. Although these responses may be a natural reaction, for many of us they fail to bring true lasting peace. Over and again Jesus speaks of our response to be one of forgiveness (Matthew 6:14-15).

Forgiveness does not equate to "forgetting" (much of the pain others inflict on us changes the composition of relationships making forgetting virtually impossible)...there are consequences to the hurt others cause. When one forgives, the pain and consequence of the hurt is still acknowledged yet something else takes place.

When we forgive we are communicating to the other that they no longer "owe us" anything, setting them free from any debt they may have outstanding. Further, forgiving another human being sets us free from the need to collect on the debt owed. When we forgive we no longer have to exert energy, time, and emotion on collecting what another cannot give us (how can an individual give us back our innocence?).

The hope of the Gospel is that forgiveness sets us all free from the hurt we cause one another in the hopes that a true reconciliation of all things might occur.

Grace and peace.