Day 5

"Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, 'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?'  
Jesus answered, 'I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.'"

Matthew 18:21-22

I already used one of my favorite "merciful" Bible passages, but I thought this would be a good one. I have to admit, I'm not great at forgiveness and mercy. I'm not good at letting go of injustices. I have a hard time saying, "I've been upset about that, but the time has passed. Now I need to move on." Yet Jesus calls his followers to be exceedingly merciful. In some translations, Jesus says, "Seven times seventy." Wes and I have a long standing joke that we will absolutely forgive one another 490 times, but the 491st offense will forever remain unforgiven. Most people agree that Jesus was not suggesting we keep accounts of how many times a person has wronged us, but that we should forgive indefinitely, as Jesus forgives.


I don't know about anyone else, but this is very difficult for me to do. If Wes leaves his shoes where I ask him not to, that's easily forgiven. But I still occasionally get upset about the way one of my previous babysitting families treated me, about my high school boyfriend who cheated on me, or about some other pretty significant event from years past. That's not to say that I wasn't justified in my anger. Heck, Jesus curses a fig tree just because it wasn't producing fruit the day he was hungry. Jesus overturned tables and whipped people in the temple. Yet it doesn't seem like Jesus ever let his anger take control of his life. He exhibited more than forgiveness--he showed mercy. He showed mercy to the adulteress woman who was about to be stoned. He showed mercy to his disciples who deserted him in his hour of need. And he even showed mercy to the people who crucified him.

I think the forgiveness/mercy aspect of Jesus is perhaps the most difficult to emulate. There is a lot that we can adopt simply by practice--praying, serving, exhibiting kindess--but there is no way to fake forgiveness and mercy. Sure, you can pretend everything is all right for awhile, but there's eventually going to be that thing that puts you over the edge and causes you to bring up all the past offenses. True forgiveness is tough, and I'm going to have to get in the habit of praying for the ability to do so, because there is no earthly way I'm getting there on my own.