The first thing to examine regarding forgiveness is the act that requires it. There are times, circumstances, and periodic
direct actions of others that lead to us being hurt. Someone does something that injures us. There is no dispute that we have been wounded
by this act. In our minds at least, we
have suffered ‘unjustly’, there is no reason for this injury – at least no good
or acceptable reason. The perpetrator is
clearly in the wrong. And we have the
‘right’ to be unhappy about this incident.
We now have a candidate for forgiveness.
Then there is the perceived
motive of the perpetrator that seems to factor into our
forgiveness. For example, a 2yr old
child runs over your foot with their Big-Wheel tricycle by accident. They immediately apologize. Do you accept this, or decide to hold it
against them for the remainder of their lives?
Sound silly doesn’t it, the 2yr old is less likely to have laid out an
elaborate plan to run over your foot, their motives are in fact pure, this was
merely an accident. The fault is still
theirs, but the motive lacks malice. But
unfortunately most acts done against us are not accidents; they are calculated
and implemented in the best interest of someone else, and to our
detriment. The perpetrator may later
regret this decision, even without being confronted with it, but not always. Sometimes we just seem to have enemies (a person
or group of people seemingly devoted to our constant pain, subjugation, and
failure).
Then comes the acknowledgement
of the offense, that factors into the common version of
forgiveness. At some point the
perpetrator realizes they have committed an offense against us, and becomes
regretful of this choice and action.
When this occurs, they tend to seek us out and offer an apology. Human nature tends to be bold when committing
an offense (i.e. not so shy to do it in public), but timid when it comes to seeking
an apology (i.e. usually sought in private, away from public eyes, as this
process is considered humiliating). This
offer of an apology is a recognition they have committed a wrong action against
us, or it is not real. Forcing someone
to apologize teaches little, helping them understand the impact of their
actions is probably more effective.
All these preliminaries go in to the setting the stage for
forgiveness. But what does forgiveness
really mean? It actually means that once
the act against us has been felt, we realize we have been hurt, we have a choice about how we respond
to it. We can either let it go (offering
forgiveness), or hold on to it looking for justice. Self-interest would demand justice. Wanting to ‘get-even’ is a very common
emotional response. This is after all,
only fair. Clearly we have been
wronged. And people so often misquote
scripture by using the text “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for
a life” this is merely a definition of justice, not a prescription for
recommended outcomes. Forgiveness then,
is aware that justice has NOT been served.
If we are to forgive this action against us, we are not still seeking to
get-even. In fact we are effectively
dismissing the act without seeking a punitive response. In this sense, forgiveness overrides
justice. It is grace without merit.
People who seek justice for being wronged seldom find
satisfaction. The reasons are complex
but most often is that they judge the perpetrator’s motives sometimes more
harshly than what is real. Then the
punishment never seems to be enough
to fit the crime. Consider for a minute
that you have suffered the worst of crimes; someone has just killed a close
loved-one to you. Do you decide
different punishments based on different motives? If the killer shot your loved one, while
trying to kill another, do you lessen the punishment? What if the ‘killer’ was actually a police
officer trying to stop a serial killer and simply missed hitting your loved
one. Does your demand for justice now
require the life of this police officer who has made the worst of all
mistakes?
But if the shooter who killed your loved one was ‘Ted
Bundy’, it seems much more likely to demand he be executed for killing your
loved one, even if he shot them by accident, since he was convicted of killing
many others on purpose. Herein the text
we quote is seldom used “a life for a life” – we seldom demand the life
of a police officer who makes a mistake – but usually seek the life of an
accused murderer as our form of ‘justice’.
Both their actions were the same, why does our sense of justice vary? Then too, as horrific as it sounds, we have
as a society tried, convicted, and then executed men for crimes of murder that
later evidence ‘proved’ they were innocent of.
In effect we have killed an innocent person, blaming them for a crime
they did NOT commit. As it turns out
now, we become the murderers. His family could rightly demand our blood,
our lives.
Even if the murderer who killed our loved one was guilty,
and we have them executed, once they are dead – is our loved one back in our
lives again, no. This kind of wrong
action robs us forever of something we valued, something we loved. The life of the perpetrator does not replace
our loss. We will feel it as long as we
live in this world. This is the reason
people seldom find any satisfaction in seeking justice when they are
wronged. People are rarely satisfied that the
punishment of the guilty is sufficient to cover the injury they sustained.
Forgiveness is a form of giving to others, and like when we
give our money back to God, the process of giving changes the core of who we
are. The process
is life-altering. The same
is true of forgiveness. Consider that in
spite of our knowledge that the perpetrator does not deserve our forgiveness,
we offer it anyway. What does this do to
us? It relieves us from seeking
punishment that will never be enough. It
allows us to resume a relationship with the offender and maintain love between
us.
The 2yr old with the Big-Wheel may well be your own
child. Will you withhold your love based
on an accidental injury? You find it
easy to forgive those you love, and your love then is able to grow
further. Learning to forgive your
enemies changes you. You become more able to love,
not just your enemies, but your friends and family. Experiencing forgiveness frees you from the
negative emotional spiral you can fall into when seeking to ‘right the wrongs’. It allows you to even move your focus to the
person who hurt you, in the context of trying to reach out to help them. Concern for others can top your thinking when
based in forgiveness, rather than focus on self, and the injury self sustained.
What is the affect of forgiveness on the one that hurt
you? It is heartbreaking. It can reduce a hardened criminal to tears to
experience true forgiveness, unwarranted love and concern, by the very victim
of his crimes. Think closely, this is
what God is doing for you, for every wrong choice you make, for every wrong
action you do, whether you do it with intent or not. When you realize that God takes your horrific
crime, and grants your simple petition for forgiveness, He lets you off the
hook and continues to reach out to you in love.
To you, the criminal responsible for the heinous torture and death of
His Son upon a cross of shame, this is the crime your evil choices have
resulted in. You are responsible, yet
you are not only forgiven, you are loved.
God is reaching to you, His enemy by your choice, and trying to get you
to become His friend, by your choice. Do
you think it easy to forgive the murderer of your only son? Yet He goes well beyond forgiveness and
offers us such endless love, can we do any less for each other?
Some say the ‘turning the other cheek’ after being slapped
is a sign of cowardice. Rather it is a
sign of someone who knows the value of others.
In the great strength of self-restraint, we look past our self-interest,
and righteous demands for justice, and simply offer the other cheek. It is not a form of masochism. It is a statement that says I do not want to
fight with you, I want to know you, I want to love you, and you have not done
so terrible a thing that I could not find a way to love you like my God loves me. Rather than be ardent champions of justice,
Christians should be unyielding suppliers of
grace. Rather than buying guns to
protect ourselves and our interests, we should be reaching out to those in
need, and leaving our protection in God’s hands. Forgiveness may never be easy, but its power
is beyond dispute, and it works as an agent of love to ALL it encounters.
People here in the US were so surprised at the reaction of
the Amish parents of a 5yr old little girl who was brutally murdered by a
child-abusing-lowlife-criminal. Within a
day, they had forgiven the man. Her
blood still fresh on his hands, and forgiveness had already been offered (note;
it was not asked for by the criminal, it was offered by the parents without
condition). This is an excellent example
of someone who understands what forgiveness can do in their own lives. It can and did free those parents to remember
their little girl in joy, happiness, and the hope of reuniting with her in
Heaven. Rather than be caught in a
self-interested, self-motivated negative cycle of emotion, they are free to love – even to
love the one who took their only child from them. This is TRUE freedom. This is true power. This is true love. Perhaps you should embrace forgiveness right
away …
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