Living Beyond Offense: 7 Days Exploring Forgivenessનમૂનો

The Hard Work of Forgiveness

I find it profoundly interesting that financial debt is Jesus’s preferred way of talking about forgiveness (Matthew 6:12; Luke 7:36-50). How does Jesus’s debt analogy help us to better understand the work of forgiveness better? Here’s my theory. When someone sins against you, they make an unauthorized withdrawal from your relational account, leaving the shared account in the red. Their offenses can also be so impactful that your personal account, which was once filled with shalom, has now been depleted by their sin, making it difficult for you and the relationship to move forward with the same ease. With our accounts in the red, we can either ignore the debt and keep pushing forward in an impoverished relationship or refuse to move forward until they bring our accounts back into the black. Instead of making the merciful decision to forgive, you can strap a workload to their backs, refusing to loosen your chokehold until they fulfill one or more of the following requirements:

• An Apology. You will not forgive them unless they apologize. But even if they do, their apologetic presentation must also meet your expected word count, admission of guilt, and tone.
• An Explanation. You will not forgive them unless they provide a reasonable explanation for the wrong they’ve caused.
• Shame. Unless they are walking around filled with shame, you will not forgive them. For you, their shameful disposition says they understand the wrong they have done.
• Groveling. To pay off their debt, they need to woo you. You need to see them making the extra effort. Only then will you soften up and forgive.
• They Pay You Back. In the cases where money and material items are involved, you will not forgive them unless they pay you back.

While this list of requirements for forgiveness may seem logical, it does not match the biblical requirements for forgiveness. As we’ll explore further in Day 6, while some of these are biblical requirements necessary for reconciliation, none of them are biblically required for forgiveness. Biblical forgiveness is free. Jesus required neither an apology nor an explanation to journey to Golgotha’s hill for our salvation.

This list of requirements can also lead you to a painful dead end. What if your offender refuses? What if they rip up your list of requirements and walk away? Then what? Will you allow their unpaid debt to leave your personal shalom account in the red? If you do, you will inevitably tax innocent others with the responsibility of paying your offender’s debt. You will also inadvertently lock yourself in a prison and leave the key in your offender’s hands. Only what they do next can set you free. But even if your offender meets all your requirements, you will still have to make the merciful decision to release them of their debt.

However, deciding to release your offender of the responsibility is painfully difficult. Because if we do, the question is this: Who will bring my account back into the black? Friend, Christ will. He has an infinite number of resources at His disposal to heal every wound and bring your personal shalom account back into the black. His promise to all who suffer in this broken world is to, by His own hand, “restore, establish, strengthen, and support” them (1 Peter 5:10 CSB). The One who calls you to make the merciful decision to release your offender of their debt will be faithful to heal you. And when you know this to be true, it makes it easier to not only mercifully release your offender of their debt, but also to not retaliate against them in anger.