Confession: someone hurt me last year, and I don’t want to forgive him. In fact, I want him to pay dearly.
Jesus asked his followers to do plenty of outlandish things. If they were to be true followers, he told them, “eat my flesh and drink my blood” (John 6:53), “hate your mother and father” (Luke 14:26), “sell everything and give to the poor” (Luke 18:22). But no matter how insane any of them sounded, or sound today even, nothing Jesus said has ever been as difficult for me to follow than his command to forgive. Theologically I get it. From a purely Biblical perspective I can tell you that I cognitively understand that we forgive because we are forgiven. That whatever wrongs someone has committed against me pale in comparison to the sins I have committed against my Creator. From the comfort of my counseling chair in my office I frequently wax eloquently about the dangers of bitterness and the fact that the real person who is set free in the process of forgiveness is “you.”
I know. I know. I know. But in the real world where you and I live the command for me to forgive sounds as ancient and impossible as Jesus’ suggestion that I can move a mountain off of its foundation with nothing but my faith. Absolutely impossible. Nothing takes more humility and nothing demands more of me. Hearing Jesus’ command to forgive makes me anxious. It makes me defensive. It makes my heart pump a bit harder and my chest compress a little tighter. Forgiving feels more like an invisible hand is reaching into the depth of my soul and ripping away something that feels so essential to my life and existence. Which is exactly what the process of forgiveness is. I harbor grudges, and you harbor grudges, because they bring us some semblance of control. If I can hold something over someone else it gives me power, it gives me a sense of superiority. It feels good to be angry. We can grow very accustomed to the poison of hatred coursing through our veins, and we can become addicted to being the victim. Nothing feels quite as good as feeling sorry for yourself. When we choose to forgive, it has been said, we relinquish our right to punish whoever hurt us. That is why forgiveness is so difficult. I want revenge. I want someone to pay. Even this very day I carry with me a wound given to me by someone that I want to destroy. It’s killing me, but not nearly as much as the kind of death I have convinced myself that I would experience by forgiving and letting go. Today I am reading Jesus’ famous exhortation to forgive someone “seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:22) and I am doing the math. 490 times. Today that sounds about right. That totals almost a year and a half of forgiving this same person every single day. Maybe that is what Jesus intended us to see. Forgiveness is not easy and it takes naming your wound and naming the tormentor every day, maybe for over a year, and asking for freedom, begging for the spirit to come and help you to unclench your fist. Forgiveness is NOT saying that someone does not deserve punishment; it is surrendering your right to deliver it to them. It will cost you to do this, but rest assured that as you pass through the process, when Jesus says, “I totally understand,” he means it. Freedom is waiting. 489 days left to go.
