Thursday, November 06, 2008

Forgiveness

Now, being an English student, I tend to over-analyse words. That's what we do. Find every ounce of meaning we possibly can in a phrase until there's none left, then claim there never was any in the first place. Its bad when I do that when I'm trying to read for fun; its worse when I do it in church. Even worse, perhaps, when I stand looking at the screen, reciting the line "forgive us our sins as we forgive others," and thinking about how everyone reads that and feels all warm and fuzzy inside because they know God is going to forgive them for what they've done wrong during the week. Awesome. But wrong.

Not wrong in the sense that God won't forgive us, because He definitely always does. Its just the words we're using and the meaning we're choosing to take from them. Or should that be the meaning we chose to project on to them. We think we're asking God to fully forgive us our sins in the knowledge of the biblical model that says He always will, but actually, what would we do if one day He took us literally and forgave us like we forgive others? Half forgiveness here, bit of lingering bitterness there. The words of forgiveness with one breath and then gossip to whomever is around with the next? Too bitter and twisted or hurt too deeply to really forgive , instead allowing the relationship to fracture and disintegrate?

How often do we read those words, realise what we're actually saying and adjust OUR forgiveness, adjust how WE are forgiving people and deal with that before we come to God and ask it of Him?? Who are we to judge ourselves and our level of forgiveness to others (for want of a better phrase) and still think that it is in any way comparable to God's utterly total and complete forgiveness of us?

Love, etc.
xx

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're not an English student. You're an English graduate!

LeLe said...

Ouch! Your writing makes me wish I hadn't lost my mo-jo. I used to write like you but somewhere along the way, I lost it. Maybe you'll be an inspiration to me. :) Such a thought-provoking post!