In my limited experience, the denial of love, or as a friend once put it: neglect, is one of the biggest injustices I know. I defy anyone to stand in pure judgement over someone he has not first loved. In our church we're taught that we win the right to speak into someone else's life: to criticise, to encourage, to share, to command, only if we love them. The power of authority comes from the willingness to sacrifice yourself for others. We should tremble with fear if we admonish someone on any other basis.
I'm learning, I think for the first time, that forgiveness isn't always so easy. Sure, there's one level where I feel I can forgive anyone anything, but there's another level where it's hard to let go off an injustice, however much you try to forgive.
I've been reflecting on the power of love and fear recently, and I guess it ties into this problem of forgiveness. Jesus says,
If you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Matthew 6
Forgiveness is about the decision to love - not the decision to forget. What kind of Father God do we have if we believe that his forgiveness involves no love, if it's simply a choice to let us off the hook? The forgiveness that Jesus speaks of is a decision to get reconnected with others, to realise that, if you want to move on, somehow you're going to have to work with these people again, even if it's only in your own heart. It may take time and pain but anything else isn't really forgiveness.
Fear can rule our lives, but forgiveness is a way out, and it's something I have to stay continuously open to because, personally, I find it hardest trusting my own friends. I guess it's crazy but I have to choose to work with the same people I know could hurt me in the next instant. And that's not always easy. Most people fear to approach a stranger, I don't, I fear the man who knows me.
Strangers are easy - I know exactly where a stranger is coming from: they don't trust me. And that's okay, I can work with that because I am still willing to love them. But, ironically, the man who knows me I don't feel so confident with, because I know I can love them as much as I like, but if their agenda is not entirely good I can't stop them hurting me. Consequently, I find myself in this strange position where there are many I want to love but few people whom I entirely trust. A friend can hurt you more than an enemy's wounds.
It's interesting that Jesus did not "entrust himself" to the people who believed in him but loved them and forgave anyway (John 2). Perhaps the reality is that only with repentance and right actions can we choose to really trust people. But the choice of love has to be there from the start.
Will you be my friend?
ReplyDeleteCan well understand what you mean about friends words or actions hurting more that a strangers...guess their words or actions cut deeper than a strangers purely because we have invested time love and trust in them.But ometimes we do really have no choice but to carry on loving and forgive if we want to keep that friend in our lives...not easy tho sometimes.
ReplyDelete; ) The TJ
A teacher and good friend of mine once said on forgiveness:
ReplyDeleteGod did not only tell us "if u don't forgive others, I won't forgive you", he gave us the example how to forgive.
When Jesus hang on the cross, beaten, mocked by those who had followed him, he prayed "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do".
Good thing for us he didn't pray "Father, I forgive them..." But he asked the Father to do it for him.
We can also ask God to forgive them we can't.
So basicly you're saying Jenny that sometimes you can't forgive in your own strenght?
ReplyDelete; ) The TJ
Yes, it's hard. To forgive and continue to love. Most hard when someone doesn't ask for forgiveness, and you know he will continue to hurt you.
ReplyDeleteBut what I found awesome in his teaching, is that it is like still one step further away from forgiving in my own strength. It's not me doing it, it's not even me doing it with the help of God, but I ask God to forgive. And giving it over I give Him the freedom to start some miracle work in my heart, that I will also be free from the wounds and the burden of judging someone else.
Uhuh. A christian believes that what one ocomplishes is not through one's own strength/efforts
ReplyDelete"By Grace you are saved, not thro' works, so that no man can boast"
Ephesians 2:8/9.
Anything you do as a christian is achieved through faith in, a relationship with him, and a relationship with others who also have a relationship with him. So forgiveness - as an example, of yourself and others, happens because you are sharing yourself with god and his people.
For many christians, knowing that they are sharing the burden in that way, is a release from a tremendous burden. But believing that they are in a relationship with god and that they can trust that he has their best interests at heart is the clincher.
Particularly when people don't accept your forgiveness.
I'm open to correction :)
"It's interesting that Jesus did not "entrust himself" to the people who believed in him but loved them and forgave anyway (John 2). Perhaps the reality is that only with repentance and right actions can we choose to really trust people. But the choice of love has to be there from the start."
ReplyDeleteJohn 2:24 "But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. 25 He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man."
However, we don't know all men, and have selfish-biased judgement.
1Corinthians13:7 says that love "always trusts".
Therefore, Is it not for us to trust all men?
I do not know sacrifice, love and trust in my life. Nevertheless, I would appreciate your feedabck!
I think that's an excelent point anonymous - I'm not sure where it gets us though.
ReplyDeleteI think there is an argument for saying we do know all men - perhaps not initmately, but I'm not sure that that is what John 2 is saying. We know all men are sinful, selfish, unable to truly do good without God; there is quite a bit that we know. In that sense we can't trust them. And, as a church, when it comes to judgement, we have the mind of Christ.
But there is a sense that when you love anyone you do actually trust them anyway. You even trust them to make mistakes and will also trust them through their mistakes - that is the nature of love?
So on the one hand you have an awareness of mankind, a knowledge that he will harm you - you cannot give your pearls to swine, if you do the most important things in life: your life-spirit, your ability to love will be trampled on. But we must open ourselves up to people in order to show them the love of Christ too, we must accept them, esteem them and be vulnerable to them.
I guess your cliched Christian would say: "trust the individual, but do not trust their sin"?