Forgiveness

It seems like there are some lessons that we will never stop learning. Just when you think you finally understand something, God throws a curve ball at you.

I thought that I knew what forgiveness was. After all, I've apologized to people all my life and had them forgive me, and I had done the same for others. Countless times someone would say something or do something, and I would tell them "It's okay. I forgive you." Life would just continue as before.

Isn't that what forgiveness is all about? Apparently not.

A couple weeks ago I realized something. I realized that someone I had always considered to be a friend didn't really act as if we were friends. Sure, we would both say that we were very good friends, but as I took some time to consider our friendship, I could tell that this person didn't really care about it. They didn't treat me with respect and had often used our friendship to serve their own purposes. Half the time they were just self-absorbed. But the worst part was feeling like the person considered me to be a second-class citizen. While I had often felt that before, I would always write it off as that person just having a bad day. Any time the person was insensitive (to the point of being cold), or just treated me like a jerk, I just kept telling myself that I needed to forgive and forget. The person was just having problems. They didn't mean it. Things would turn around. (As I read over this paragraph, it doesn't begin to describe what hurt I felt, so if you think I'm being overly dramatic, you'll just have to trust me).

Obviously since I'm writing about this, things didn't turn around. And one evening I found myself shocked at what I had believed and how I had let someone treat me. The shock quickly melted away into anger. I was furious. People talk about seeing red, and I was as close as I have ever come to that point. Hell may have no fury like a woman scorned, but the second worst thing is a hurt friend. Eventually as I calmed down over the course of a few days, there was a little voice that told me I needed to forgive this person.

Sometimes I really hate that voice.

I decided to explain to God why I couldn't possibly forgive that person. Sure, I'd try hard to not treat them poorly, but I couldn't just forgive them. After all, they didn't realize that they had wronged me. They would probably never know how much they hurt me. So why bother forgiving someone who doesn't know they did anything wrong?

"Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."" (Luke 23:34)

Forgiveness is not just forgiving the people who we can forgive. It's forgiving the people who will never know what it took to forgive them.

What my friend did to me is similar to what we all do to God. We enter into a relationship with Him, and things seem to be great. Then we stop caring. We still say that we're in a relationship with Him, but we spend less and less time together. We go off and have fun with others, while we break His heart. And we don't even realize how much pain we're giving Him. But He still forgives us.

"We are most like beasts when we kill. We are most like men when we judge. We are most like God when we forgive."