Forgive + Forget

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Colossians 3:13 (NIV)

It took a 40-years-in-the-armpit-of-the-desert sort of situation, a little like my buddy Moses, for me to get a few things straight about myself and my relationship with God. One of those things was God’s view on forgiveness. I often joke that I have a PhD in Learning Stuff the Hard Way, but the truth is, spiritual growth for me has been quite a journey. It took a while to grasp that I have a 100% right standing with God because of Christ, period, and that I can’t add to or take away from that. I confess it’s still a bit mind boggling.

Complete forgiveness is an amazing, mind-blowing thing. A priceless, undeserved gift.

And yet . . . I still struggle with letting go of the hurtful or offensive things that others do. Offensive people are everywhere, aren’t they? (Or is it just me?) We live in a world of broken, rude, imperfect people who take cuts and accuse and backstab and offend. And some of us are gifted at keeping track of offense while conveniently forgetting our own flaws. But we are all guilty. ALL of us. NO one is perfect (nor should we expect anyone to be).

Colossians 3:13 in the NLT says, “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”

So even though hurt happens regularly, the Christian is told repeatedly in scripture to forgive. And it’s a command, not a suggestion, and not open to interpretation. Not only are we commanded to forgive, but we are to forgive as God forgave us. How does God forgive? Completely. Without hesitation, condition, or holding it over us. He not only forgives our sins and offenses, he also forgets them. File deleted, forever.

Jesus knows how warped our perspectives are and has a LOT to say about it, like the parable of the servant who was forgiven an astronomical debt and then beat up a guy who owed him 5 bucks (Matt 18). Or about how we’re quick to point out the speck in our brother’s eye and ignore the log sticking out of ours (Matt 7). I don’t think his use of hyperbole there was a coincidence. I think that was to help point out how phenomenally flawed and ridiculous our hypocrisy is.

Jesus knows us all too well.

So where does that leave us? Doomed to disobedience, bitterness, and conflict, thanks to our human reflexes, unless we make some choices. We have a choice to keep stumbling over the wounds and offenses of others and deal with the fallout, or we can choose to change the way we respond to offense.

This isn’t rocket science, but there are 3 simple things I’m challenging myself to do daily:

1. REMEMBER daily (hourly?) that I’ve been fully forgiven and to likewise fully forgive, a paradigm shift that will likely take some proactive discipline. Maybe add Colossians 3:13 as an hourly alert on your phone. Maybe hang The Lord’s Prayer on your bathroom wall where you’ll see it each morning (and at other necessary moments throughout the day…). Maybe post a sticky note on the dashboard of your Ford Escape if you’re in the habit of verbally assessing the IQ of drivers making less than ideal choices. Ahem.

2. PRAY. Both for the offender (forgivee?) and for God’s help to forgive them. He gladly enables and empowers us to do what we cannot do on our own, especially when it’s a matter of obedience, which forgiveness clearly is. A prayer (or 70×7 prayers) asking the Holy Spirit for the power to forgive someone is a prayer he is happy to answer. I can testify to that.

3. FORGET. I may forget a lot of things, but sadly, I can remember all the times I’ve been hurt. Forgiving others as God has forgiven us means we must choose to both fully forgive AND fully forget. And like forgiveness, forgetting is not easy, but Jesus will be faithful to help.

According to 1 Corinthians 13:5, love keeps no record of wrongs, and I believe that love is the real goal here.

Because when we 1. remember that we ALL need forgiveness, 2. pray for help forgiving, and 3. choose to forget others’ sins, we are letting another imperfect soul off the hook, we’re obeying the Lord, and best of all, we’re promoting the kind of love that John talks about, the kind that shows the world that we truly are Christ’s disciples. We are helping to pave the way for an amazing kind of supernatural unity, by the power and grace of God, that the world doesn’t recognize and the enemy can’t stand. And not only are we acting in obedience, love, and unity, we are also putting ourselves in a position to grow a little bit more every day.

Or so I’ve heard. 😉

Love & Peace,

~Camille

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If Not For Other Humans…

Hot buttons. We all have them… those things that bring out the less flattering side of us when the right one gets pushed.

As a believer, I know I need to see with the eyes of grace. I need to rise above human failings and offenses. Need to step back and think of the bigger picture, the spiritual principle, the eternal significance of a wise, well-placed word.

Sometimes, I remember this.

And then… there are those other times. The times my particular hot button gets pushed and the last thing I want is someone pointing out that Jesus would never call that driver a bonehead. Jesus would never take offense at being falsely accused and fire off a text. Jesus wouldn’t see someone coming toward him in the store and spin and duck down a different aisle.

There are times that my lack of grace for others does not reflect well on me. That my negativity or complaint or harsh view of someone’s behavior doesn’t reflect well on Jesus and his spirit living in me. Do I have to like others’ idiotic driving? No. Do I have to take harsh treatment? No.

But what does my response to others’ failings and flaws and thoughtless choices reveal about the state of my heart?

When I’m more inclined to react “in the flesh” (meaning my hot button has been pushed) I need to really take a look at why. Is it the other person’s fault?

Well, duh, if not for other humans, I’d be all sweetness and light all the time. (ha!)

But… since I have been known to seek the Lord’s ways instead of my own, and ask for the ability to see people or situations with eyes of grace instead of with my nearsightedness, I realize that grace is a supernatural reaction, and is therefore possible. Not just possible, but expected of those saved by grace.

So why are some situations harder to respond to in grace than others?

In my observation, most people have at least one hot button. That one thing that flips our switch and has us off and running (or swearing, or slandering, or responding) before we have a chance to ask ourselves What Would Jesus Do?

What’s missing? I don’t know about you, but I find that a day began and bathed in prayer and the word is a day I’m more inclined to look at things through a spiritual lens, rather than just the natural. When I don’t begin the day focused on the Lord, it’s like using my phone all day and then forgetting to plug it at night, then trying to use it the next day. It needs to be recharged. And not just once a week, but daily.

We need to plug in to the Source and seek the Lord for daily renewal. We need the word, worship, and prayer. And we need to take the truths of scripture to a more intimate level, to press those truths deeper, from the mind to the spirit, from the natural to the supernatural, where God’s grace and wisdom transcend the world and the flesh and our rights and our petty grievances and our offended, wounded pride and being disrespected and a hundred other hot buttons. In quietness and prayer, the One who wrote the word speaks truth into me, lives in me, breathes his life into me, makes me new, gives me strength and power to overcome, gives me victory over sin and tailgaters and false accusations and offense.

If I begin my day in the spirit.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 is one of my favorite verses:

But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
    that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
    its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
    and never fails to bear fruit.

Because when I begin my day in the spirit, I have a better chance at responding not in a natural way but supernatural. It shields me from the careless, the thoughtless, and it helps me rise above, gives me perspective. Creates a protective shell so that my nerves aren’t so exposed, so sensitive. It allows time for grace to fall like a blanket of snow and cocoon the situation, and perhaps helps me to see a bit like how God sees.

And when I don’t begin my day that way, well … oh wow, would you look at the time!

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.  -Galatians 5:16-26

If you’re willing to admit it, what’s your hot button? Does beginning your day in the word and in prayer make a difference in the way you respond when your buttons get pushed?

Okay, here’s the question I really want to ask: Can you show grace to those who should know better and yet sometimes trip and fall right on their hot button? Do you, like me, tend to forget that other humans have moments of weakness, when maybe they’ve run their battery down and are in dire need of a recharge?

I hope I’m not defined only by moments of weakness, moments when my response doesn’t reflect well on me. It’s hard to remember to give the same grace to others that I would like shown to me. It’s also hard to not define a person by a mistake or an unflattering action. (Or am I the only one who struggles with this?)

Or do we expect everyone—except for us—to be perfect?

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