God keeps wacking me upside the head, pounding home the importance of forgiveness and grace. I have realised that I am really bad at it...so He keeps on smacking me in the head (in a gentle ish way, of course), trying to get His point across to me. Apparently I"m a slow learner...you'd think I'd have learned by now that I need to forgive and love people and show His grace to them. Thankfully, God is a very patient and faithful God and when I fail to show grace, forgiveness, and love, He never does.
It's easy to be all about love and grace and forgiveness when things are going well. It's easy to show grace and love and forgiveness to people when they make little mistakes that aren't causing hurt to you or anyone else. But it's entirely different when suddenly, you are the one being hurt, when the seas get rough, when someone you care about is being hurt by someone else's actions. I am all about showing love and grace and forgiveness to others....until I get hurt or see those I love getting hurt. But when that happens, suddenly all the grace and love and forgiveness I claim to hold in my heart evaporates. Suddenly, it's all about me....I have been betrayed, I've been stabbed in the back, I've been hurt, I've been treated unjustly! I have rights, you know! I have the right to be angry and upset over this hurt! I justify my anger with 'rights' and the arrogant assumption that I would never hurt someone like this person has hurt me. But...this is the whole point of God's love and forgiveness and grace. He loves us, he forgives us, He shows grace to us, even when we hurt Him and betray Him and crucify Him on a cross. It is when we are feeling hurt and think that our pain justifies our anger that we need to show grace, love, and forgiveness. Because that is what grace and love and forgiveness is! Grace is free and unmerited favour that is bestowed upon those who do not deserve it...grace is unchanging positive regard for someone. Grace is never deserved. Grace recognises that all fall short of the glory of God....that there is none who are righteous...and that we are all broken. Love is summed up in 1 Corinthians 13; love is patient, kind, not envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude, does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful, rejoices not in wrongdoing but rather in truth. Love bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things and it never ends. Love does not have to be earned and deserved....love is not conditional. Love does not cling to 'rights'. Forgiveness wipes the slate clean, pardoning the wrong, canceling the debt. Forgiveness lets go of anger and the 'right' to be bitter.
Grace, love, and forgiveness are wrapped up and intertwined together....you cannot have one without the other two. In fact, you could say that grace and forgiveness are embedded within love. Love shows unchanging, never ending positive regard and favour, regardless of what a person does. Love lets go of our 'rights' and instead shows grace and forgiveness towards those that hurt us and wrong us. Indeed, it is hard to show true love, grace, and forgiveness without first having people hurt us and wrong us, for it is in the rough seas of pain and hurt that love is made evident. I am still learning this. My first response when hurt is to cling to my anger, my hurt, my pride, my 'rights' and justify myself and my lack of grace and forgiveness. But, that response is not of Christ. I am learning, slowly and painfully, what it means to truly love others, to truly show grace and forgiveness towards others. I am all too quick to pridefully decide that I have got it down, that I am all about loving others and showing grace and forgiveness. But then God asks, "Are you sure, my child?" and allows me to experience hurt caused by another broken human being...and I realise that I haven't really learned how to love yet and I begin to argue with God, clinging to my 'rights'. Then, gently but firmly, He points to the cross and says, "This is love" and I realise that had He clung to His rights as God, I would be in hell, separated from God, I would have no hope, and I would not have His sweet salvation. In light of that, how dare I cling to my rights and not show love, grace, and forgiveness upon those around me?
