Forgiveness May Be A Long Process

We live in an unforgiving age. We see a public figure who commits sins or makes very public mistakes or even commits crimes get caught and then ask for forgiveness. The person holds a news conference to express sorrow; and then we see the media or other people question the sincerity of the person who has just asked for forgiveness. And in every future news coverage of this individual - all of the past crimes, mistakes, and sins are repeated again and again. In a real sense there is no redemption for this individual. The person will always live in the shadow of his/her past.

Sometimes we as Christians find it very difficult to forgive people in our life as well. We harbor deep resentment for past comments said in anger. We relive over and over again events that happened long ago. Even when the person has asked for forgiveness we can't let go of the past and we keep reminding the person of the past transgression. We question the sincerity of the apology.

As Christians we are called to forgive others.

We ask God to "Forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." In another passage, Jesus tells Peter to forgive 70 times 7 times! And yet, forgiveness can be very difficult even when we think we have forgiven others.

For many of us, forgiveness is a long process because we may discover that the hurt and anger have sunk deep in the layers of our hearts. We may have forgiven the transgressor but then something later on triggers all those old feelings of hurt and anger. We can get discouraged and ask ourselves, "Why is this all coming back up now?" We forget that our act of forgiveness is not equal to our feelings. To forgive is to consciously choose to love unselfishly as Christ loves us. Feelings come and go; so we can choose to entertain those feelings or we can ask the Lord to help us dismiss them.

This experience may happen many times in the course of our life. In the process of forgiving others it is always good to remind ourselves of how much God has forgiven us in Christ. We need to ask Him to imitate the unselfish love of His Son, Jesus. Forgiveness may be difficult, but it is not impossible when we place our trust in " Him who strengthens me."