Forgiveness

Forgiveness. It's easy to accept, but hard to give. And I'm really having a problem with it right now. Every time I try to forgive, all the issues come to the surface and I think "I cannot believe they did that to me!" or "how dare they! They need to pay!" It's hard to be gracious and forgiving when all you want to do is punch someone in the face.

I guess it all comes down to the fact that I want this party to pay. To suffer like I did. I'm not ready to forgive their sorry behind or put the mess behind me. I want compensation for my suffering.

And have you ever noticed that it so much harder to forgive your brother or sister in Christ? Shouldn't they know better, we reason? But God saves the most unlikely people (just look at yourself) with seemingly the worse behavioral and social problems. It takes grace and hard work to forgive.

When those thoughts of anger and revenge come boiling up, it's hard to squash them and choose to forgive instead. To not count their wrongs against them. To choose forgiveness rather than revenge. It's an almost pleasant experience to ruminate on another party's sins. Sort of self-justifying, as though you're saying "sure, I'm bad. But nothing compared to so-and-so, that jerk-face!"

It is hard to operate in the Spirit, rather than the flesh, because, frankly, the flesh comes so much easier. I am still having trouble forgiving someone who recently wounded me. I want to lick my wounds and plot my revenge, but I know that's not what God did with me. He overcame my sin and rebellion toward Him at great cost to Himself. Why do I think it would be any different for me?

Forgiveness is not cheap. It is costly to the one who must forgive the other person's offense. I wish I didn't have to forgive. I wish my life were rainbows and butterflies and I skipped hand-in-hand down the street with everyone I met, just singing a happy song. But the reality is that I live in a sin-sick world, where everyone, including me, needs to forgive and be forgiven.

Forgiveness is a chance to be like my Savior. To taste in small part how offensive my sins are to a holy God, how hurtful, and damaging, and estranging (how is that a word? Oh well, spell-check let it go), and how costly forgiveness really is.

Would you pray for me? I don't want to be angry or unforgiving, but it is so hard to for me to forgive right now. I'm still a little hurt and angry by the actions of this other person. I spoke with a mentor about it and she told me "it's okay to admit to the other person that you're still working on forgiving them". So yeah, I'm still working on forgiving them. Pray for the grace to complete it.