Forgiveness

I think forgiveness is one of the most difficult things to do. Forgiving someone of their offenses means wiping the slate clean, erasing the debt, giving pardon.

I'm super grumpy with someone right now and after weeks of pondering, rationalizing and just plain whining about the situation I finally came to a realization that there is nothing I can say or do to change the person who offended me. And there is nothing I can say or do to change the situation except offer forgiveness.

This past week the lesson for my TREK kids was forgiveness. One of the exercises was to forgive the person that God was putting on your heart to forgive. Ouch. As I went over the lesson with the kids I had a pinging in my heart. I know forgiving is the right thing to do but something is stopping me. What?

As I asked the kids "what is the one thing that stops us from forgiving others?" my eyes gazed over at the suggested answer in the leader's book. It is the ugliest thing ever. Pride. What does that have to do with forgiveness? Pride says "my hurt is the most important thing" or "what you did to me is too great to forgive". Pride stands in the way because I am simply not ready or willing to let the person off the hook who hurt me.

In the end, the hurt is mine, not the person who hurt me. The lingering agony and frustration is mine, the other has already moved on. I have no doubt that I will be hurt again by this person and likely sometime soon, but I cannot let my pride come between me and forgiveness. Jesus humbled himself to take on the likeness of man in order that my sins could be forgiven. And yet, I find myself and my problems more important than offering forgiveness to someone else.

I'd like to say that after this little lesson at AWANA on Thursday, I humbled myself, set aside my pride and forgave. But I didn't. I'm more in process of forgiving. I'll call it forgivingness - its a process. I'm willing to start it and trust that God will work on my heart and make the process a little easier.