True Forgiveness - Part 2

As I try to formulate my thoughts in order to ensure that they make sense to you, the reader, I am filled with this righteous anger, once more. I am calling to mind two different portions of scripture that are just so relevant to this, I will have to include them here so that you will be able to grasp what it is I am trying to say.

Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor (Matthew 18)

21 Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive --someone[i] who sins against me? Seven times?”

22 “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven![j]

23 “Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. 24 In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars.[k] 25 He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.

26 “But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ 27 Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.

28 “But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars.[l] He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.

29 “His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. 30 But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

31 “When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. 32 Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ 34 Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.

35 “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters[m] from your heart.”

And another....

Matthew 18New Living Translation (NLT)

The Greatest in the Kingdom

18 About that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?”

2 Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. 3 Then he said,“I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. 4 So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

5 “And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf[a] is welcoming me. 6 But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.

I realize that many of you may not know where I am going with these scriptures. And while I have you slightly confused, allow me to add two more words to the mix: restitution and reconciliation.

So.....

I realize that there are MANY men who feel the same way as my ex-husband do and I am writing this to EVERYONE who has ever experienced this as well as to all of you who really have not understood why my children have treated me so ill for the last four years. Their father, my ex-husband, raised them, and me for the most part, to believe the same way he did. And today I want to address the way he viewed forgiveness. He believed that if a person wronged you, that person must ask for forgiveness and then make restitution before any forgiveness could be shown. A person needed to earn back trust. 

Fast forward to 2011, and here he is convincing (brainwashing) my children that somehow I had sinned against them and that I was therefore an unbeliever (his biblical "out" for the marriage). And because I sinned against them I owed them something. I am not sure how he determined that he was now my judge, but there it is. For the first year after the divorce I did whatever I could to spend time with my children and keep communicating with them. But both they and their father made it so that it was inconvenient for them to bother with me, so they gradually broke off any communication at all.

Forward two years and now both of my daughters have expressed that they have forgiven me but IN THE SAME BREATH have said they want nothing to do with me. I just cannot, as a believer, understand how that is even possible! But when I think about it, two things come to mind. First is that their father has caused them to believe a lie - that I have to make some kind of restitution and earn back their trust. That somehow there will never be reconciliation. Those are lies. There is NOTHING in scripture that I have found to support such nonsense. And for him to cause them to believe that these are biblical principles...? Well. I somehow think think this falls under the  Matthew 18:6 umbrella.

The second thing is this:

In the first scripture, the man who was thrown in debtor's prison owed much to the king. He was forgiven because of the mercy of the king. It had NOTHING to do with the fact that the man earned back the trust of the king or that he paid restitution for his debt. In fact, there was no way restitution could be made.

Here is the conclusion I referred to yesterday....

I believe that my children have not forgiven me for the basic reason that they have not, themselves, been forgiven so great a debt as to understand what mercy and grace truly looks like. Perhaps they are like the man in demanding his servant pay him, never having had their own debt forgiven? Maybe they are waiting for me to pay a debt of what they believe I owe them. Maybe they are just misinformed by "someone" that I owe some kind of debt? Either way, they have NOT truly forgiven me and they have been deceived.

I pray that one day their eyes will be opened and they will see the truth of the scripture and not the "truth" given to them by a man, no matter how much they trust him.

I hope I have shed some light on yet another step in my Journey To A Healing Heart. This healing is a process and will continue as long as there is still pain. I love my children dearly and it pains me that they have strayed not only from me but the truth that they once came to know and love in Christ. I pray they will be reconciled to the Lord and that they will understand that my love for them will not die just because they have told me they want no part of me.

May His truth be your guide,

Petra

True Forgiveness

I have asked for forgiveness from both God and others on many occasions. The majority of times when I have asked for forgiveness I have heard the words, "I forgive you." Now I know, from scripture, that the Lord is "faithful and just to forgive all [my] sins and cleanse me from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9) But what of those times when someone has sinned against us or hurt us? We can say, in our hearts, "I forgive so-and-so," but when does it really mean something?

I have had two of my children say that they have forgiven me. I realize that I had caused the children much harm when I moved out (after being abandoned in every way). The kids only care about their own pain and cannot come to any realization other that what they themselves have been faced with. They refuse any form of communication with me and have told me to stop communicating with them. But on another hand they say they forgive me? This is what I cannot understand.

I am puzzled as to how a person can arrive at their definition of forgiveness when scripture clearly states something completely different. Forgiveness according to scripture, the way I read it, is an active PROCESS. The book of Matthew has the model prayer and the phrase ..."forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Did you catch that? God will forgive US to the degree we forgive others!   I want to make sure that I get that order correct. I don't know about you but I have a LOT that I need to be forgiven of, so therefore, I don't want to be stingy with the forgiveness I extend to others. 

Also, when I think if forgiveness, I think of the WAY God has shown forgiveness to His children. I want to paint a little picture of how I see God's forgiveness towards the children of Israel. The Jews would continually stray from the Lord and His guidance. They would confess their sin and the Lord would forgive them. The relationship was restored! God didn't make His children jump through hoops to "prove" they were truly repentant. He didn't have them DO anything! They would go through this time and time again, wouldn't they? But the Lord NEVER withheld His love from His children. He didn't give them the silent treatment until they had proven themselves worthy. So, if this is the case, then why do we feel we have to put "conditions" on our forgiveness towards others? 

It frustrates me beyond measure when believers add or take away from what THEY THINK the scripture says! Where does it say, "You need to forgive others, but they have to earn back your trust?" or "Your responsibility is to forgive others but you don't have to keep the relationship the same?"  Many people will come up with the "excuse" for doing what they are doing by saying, "I'm not God. I'm not perfect."  Well, what does Jesus say? "Be ye holy (perfect) as I am holy (perfect)." And thank the Lord that He NEVER tells us to do something that we cannot do! So.....what are the excuses now?

Can you now understand why I am so frustrated when FAMILY members have told me that they forgive me but they REFUSE to even allow me to speak to them nor will they speak to me. I just, as I have expressed earlier, am confounded when a believer can voice the words, "I forgive you" and can truly mean it when there is still malice, anger, and distrust in their hearts. 

I think I have come up with a theory - which will be covered in my next blog. Want a clue? What is the "history" of forgiveness in the life of the individual believer.