Forgiveness has several beautiful facets in my life, and it includes the following aspects:
1. My releasing or pardoning a guilty person from the punishment he deserves.
2. Renouncing personal resentment, revenge, the desire for justice against the offender, and the pursuit of the guilty party.
3. Taking upon myself all the consequences and covering all the expenses caused by the harm done by the guilty party.
4. My forgiving and canceling all debts and unfulfilled promises.
5. My personal acknowledgment of my guilt and wrongdoing toward others, and my asking them to forgive me.
6. My personal acknowledgment of my guilt before God and a prayer of repentance, accompanied by the desire not to do such a thing again.
And my personal participation in all these processes is very important.
A sinner’s life is extremely tangled. It is like a snowball that grows larger and larger as it rolls, until it becomes an avalanche that sweeps away everything in its path, or until it falls apart under its own weight and the burden of cares, soiling everything around it. How can all this be resolved? If strict justice is applied, there are times when taking the guilty person’s life would be a very humane punishment compared with the evil he committed. Yet even this sentence is not carried out, and the evildoer is given the opportunity to continue living and doing evil. Satan and his army of demons are a vivid example: they continually seek accomplices among human beings to achieve their evil purposes.
How, then, should God deal with this evil? He poured out His judgments in the form of a flood, fire, captivity, and disease, yet people still did not learn to be righteous. But God gave His Son to the world in order to show humanity not His power and wrath, but His mercy and love, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. The Lord chose the path of forgiving deceived humanity and decided to take all the consequences of that forgiveness upon Himself. He simply chose to forgive. No matter how tangled the case of each sinner may be, forgiveness resolves the problem instantly and forever if the lawbreaker recognizes his guilt and comes to the Creator in repentance, believing in Jesus Christ. It is God’s love revealed in this process that draws deceived souls most powerfully to their Savior. His mercy and friendliness disarm every thinking person. They open human hearts to greater grace and blessings. Together with God’s forgiveness, there comes into a person’s life the happiness of being freed from the feeling and burden of guilt for sins committed.
The Lord takes my sin and removes it from my life and from His memory, making it clear that I must remain in the purity and holiness of a new life, with a new heart that He changes with my permission. On His own initiative, God Himself takes this first step while I am still living in sin, and He cleanses me. What will I say in response? Will I accept my salvation? The decision is mine.
But by taking this first step, the Lord leads me to learn to forgive people and show them mercy and forbearance even before they recognize their guilt or repent.
When my daughter was three years old, she decided to rebel and refuse to obey her parents under any circumstances. I did not know what to do with this little monster. All my arguments were useless, and no punishment brought her to her senses. I had no experience and did not know what action to take. But evening came, it was time for bed, and my exhausted daughter fell asleep. I looked at this sleeping little person and made plans for revenge the next morning—how I would punish and discipline her and refuse to let her rule my home. But the Holy Spirit gently spoke to my mind, asking how my Heavenly Father had treated me when I behaved the same way toward Him. I remembered my own behavior and began to think. After a struggle, I knelt to pray and began asking for God’s grace for myself and my daughter. Then I decided to forgive her and begin the morning with love and friendship, without knowing what the result would be. I was very surprised when this little person woke up and behaved with her usual obedience and love. She ran around the house as if nothing had happened and was an ordinary child, with no memory of the previous day’s conflict. And I did not remind her of it.
It can be very difficult to ask God for forgiveness, but you take that step. Then the Lord calls me to forgive my debtors as well. This is where it becomes very painful. ‘How can I? He treated me so terribly!’ Yet the Lord calls me to forgive that scoundrel. And I forgive.
Then the Lord teaches me to acknowledge my sins and mistakes toward others and to ask for forgiveness myself, admitting my guilt and accepting full responsibility for the consequences of the sin or conflict. How difficult this is, especially when my pride tries to direct the process. But God humbles the proud and brings down the arrogant. I may resist and refuse to take such a step, believing that justice requires the other person to repent. Yet the Lord calls me to take the first step. And I do.
How difficult it can be to forgive the debts of those who sweetly pleaded for the money and then, while living in abundance, have no intention of repaying anything but keep looking for opportunities to ask for more. Yet I must forgive. The condition of my salvation is contained in this action.
When I forgive, I free both myself and my debtor from the burden. I place everything in God’s hands, and He takes up my cause. I stop thinking about the debtor and tormenting myself with thoughts of his shamelessness. Peace enters my heart instead, and life becomes very easy.
I have noticed that the most difficult family conflicts were very often resolved quite quickly when I was the first to acknowledge that I was wrong, even when I did not consider myself guilty. A truce followed, and the relationship was restored. So I decided always to be the one who was wrong. But this led to my becoming the embodiment of evil. Then I reconsidered my behavior and decided to resolve every conflict with love. And love works miracles. I saw that the spirit of love triumphs in every conflict, even if reconciliation does not take place, because I remain clean before God and before my opponent. Living by the motto ‘I am right’ is the greatest mistake, so I replaced it with a better one: ‘I love!’
Love is the very power of forgiveness, and it is love that draws me to repentance whenever repentance is needed.
‘I surrender’ and ‘I forgive’ are two sisters. They sound different, but they have the same spirit. Their action immediately brings me spiritual freedom. No meaningless pilgrimages or rituals are needed to remove this burden. My sincere words activate the process of liberation, and my heart rejoices in the lightness of a life unburdened by problems and sins.
Of course, there are duties and cares that must be carried out and borne, but I should not burden my heart with them. No matter how large my bank debts may be, they must be repaid; but the kind of heart and attitude with which I do so depends on me. And God teaches me diligence and sound judgment.
But construction has only just begun, and I need new materials that will take their appointed places in my little house of happiness and bring joy to my heart.
I see that blessings are overflowing in my life, and I wonder what to do next.
Bible verses for this chapter:
Psalm 32:1–2; John 3:16; Romans 5:6–8; 6:17–18, 22–23; Zechariah 12:10; Matthew 18:23–35; James 5:16; Mark 2:10–11; Luke 6:37; 15:20–24; 23:34; Numbers 14:19–20; Colossians 3:12–14; 1 John 4:10–12