“It is impossible to risk your life to make others glad in God if you are an unforgiving person. If you are wired to see other people’s faults and failures and offenses, and treat them roughly, you will not take risks for their joy…We will not gladly risk to make people glad in God if we hate them, or hold grudges against them, or are repelled by their faults and foibles. We must become forgiving people.”
These profound words from Dr. John Piper have had me thinking for a while now. I think about it on the days my flesh is weak or the times I remember how disgusting my past has been. I also remember it on the days where my pride is so much that I subconsciously believe I am the center of the world. No matter what it is that reminds me of this thought I can’t escape it being a cross road I come to almost every day.
Why is forgiving someone so hard? Why is it so tough to love those that are unlovable? Why do we turn our noses and make fun of those that are different or wrong? I don’t have answers to these very hard questions. But what I am realizing is every moment and day that goes by where I do not have this truth on my heart to forgive, then its one more day that goes by that I am wasting my life. Isn’t it funny how the amount of grace we give can be directly in proportion to how much grace we need at that time. When life is “perfect” and nothing is going wrong then I seem to be haughty and prideful. Yet those moments in life when I need a 2nd chance are the times where grace is more real than it ever could be. And grace seems so easy to share.
I have had many conversations with people about why we can’t be real and authentic with our relationships. Then that spills into the question on why we can’t be that way with our church community. Maybe that answer lies in the reality that no body wants to share the real self because they risk not being forgiven. Forgiveness does a very powerful thing. It makes things right. We forgive, we do not judge, and we lay our pride aside because in doing so we give God. We give a small piece of something that we seldom see in this world today. Joy. Joy that comes in the form of restoration.
Man there is a lot of sadness in this world. And a lot of hatred. And its sad to see so many that are not glad in God. Maybe forgiveness is a small way to change that.
SB
