Forgiven and Forgiving...

Refresher Course... on The Unforgiving Servant.

I LOVE/HATE this parable out of Matthew 18:21-35. Jesus has such a great grasp on the real perspective of things. The trick is that when someone does me wrong, I don't think about God in that moment. When someone owes me something, in a figurative, it's real. The injury is real, the wrong is real, the emotions of frustration and anger are all real. But Jesus never denies any of that, He just points out that the debt owed me is not as great as the debt I owed God.

As long as I'm focusing on the Wrong there's no way I can forgive. All I can see it the Reality of the Wrong done to me. The only thing I can do is make a sort of mental note that sends that person to prison regarding our relationship. I don't communicate freely like prison bars between us. I feel some satisfaction as if I'm making him pay.

What I don't realize is that those bars I see... I'm looking out from the INSIDE. I'm the one who's in prison - I'm the one who feels the effect of my treasured Debt of Wrong. Even more than the person I wanted to "make pay" is in prison, the Prison holds ME - my emotions, my reactions, my thoughts.

If I let time pass in that state, I won't even remember how I got there. I won't know why the relationship is so strained. Eventually, the prison I put myself in would effect my relationship with other, innocent people until I changed to become an Inmate - a bitter, resentful, suspicious person.

By making someone pay for the wrong they did me, MY character is destroyed.

Why did God set it up that way? Why did He make someone else's problem be MINE?! Maybe because of the Cross... where He made all my problems HIS. Maybe this is a way to become more like Christ... OR ELSE!

One more thing... Jesus says we must forgive from the heart. Even when I look at God and His amazing grace and mercy towards me, I am still mad at my offender. When I speak the words, "I forgive", I often growl them out of gritted teeth. That's hardly heart-felt and definitely embarrassing to admit!

But a weird thing happens quite quickly... my heart does turn around. Either the power of speaking something out loud, or the small step of trying in the right direction, draws God to act and finish the work for me. After saying it, over only a few hours, even, I feel it - or rather, my eyes are opened to the incredible act of Forgiveness that God, through Jesus, gave ME, and my gratefulness grows larger, and how much I was forgiven starts to eclipse the offense I was wronged. Shortly after that, I feel the freedom of being released from that awful Prison. I no longer see my offender through irritated glasses, and the whole world seems brighter.

You know what? No wonder Jesus spoke this stuff in a Parable!! As simple and wonderful as forgiveness is, it's really complicated to explain how it feels to ME. So... if you managed to read through all that... double kudos! Next time I'll just copy Matt. 18:21-35!!!