forgiving is serious business

CLICK HERE for the OT reading for today, and CLICK HERE for the NT reading.

Today we hear about how important it is to forgive others. The picture above is amusing. But the seriousness of how important it is to forgive comes through loud and clear in Jesus's teachings. He says that if we don't forgive others, God won't forgive us. In fact, in the story, the king has already forgiven the debt... but when the man he forgives refuses to forgive someone else, the king then punishes him for the debt the king had already forgiven.

Now, we don't want to read too much into this. But. We DO need to take to heart how serious this is. God commands us to forgive others. It's not optional. And it's not easy sometimes, right? Forgiving people who have wronged us can be very difficult.

So it's probably important to discuss what forgiveness means. It doesn't mean we have to like that person. It doesn't mean we have to trust that person. It DOES mean we have to love that person. How does that work? How can we love someone that we don't like or trust?

Well, we can understand that by realizing what those three words mean. Like, love, and trust. When you like someone, you have affection for them. You enjoy their company. They make you feel happy. None of those things are what we're commanded to do. We don't have to pretend we have affection, that we enjoy someone's company, or that they make us feel happy. We don't have to pretend anything.

Trust means that we know that we can put confidence in someone and they won't let us down. We can let our children spend the night at their house. We can lend them money. We can let them drive our car. We can let them spend time with our spouse, without us present. None of these things are we commanded to do for someone who has betrayed our trust. Just because you forgive someone doesn't mean you have to trust them. In some cases, you would be a fool to do so. If my neighbor has been found guilty of molesting children, I forgive him. But I will never let him near my children. If I have worked with someone in the past and they have failed to pay me for work I've done, or they have stolen money from me, I won't work for them again. I forgive them, and I love them. But I don't trust them anymore.

So what does love mean? If it doesn't mean liking them, and it doesn't mean trusting them, what DOES it mean? It means willing their good. It means wanting their lives to be better. It means praying for them. It means desiring that they get their life together and have a good life. It means wanting them to go to heaven, and praying that they do. Some of the "wanting" and "desiring" may take awhile for you to sincerely mean. You might find part of yourself truly WANTING them to fail. But love is learning to will their good. And when that's hard, we need to ask for help. God will help us love. It's what He does better than almost anything else. Filling us with love, for Him, for others... and even for ourselves. And the self is sometimes the hardest person to forgive.

God, please help us forgive - and love.