Do We Worship a Smiting God?
Questions and thoughts about forgiveness
A friend recently asked me about forgiveness. “What does forgiveness look like and how are we supposed to do it?”
Forgiveness is a thing we like to talk about as Christians:
In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can’t get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God’s part. Matthew 6:14-15 (MSG)
Jesus often talks about forgiving and the crucial importance of it in our lives. Even secular people who don’t believe in God or care about what Jesus says, often recognize that forgiveness is an important practice.
There’s a great quote (by whom, I don’t know), “Not forgiving is like drinking poison and expecting the other guy to die.” There are some pretty terrible things that happen to people in this life and it can definitely be challenging to forgive - especially when it’s something that the other person isn’t sorry for, or it is something that happened to a person you love.
But what does forgiveness look like in practice and how do we actually DO this forgiveness?
In it’s rawest form I would argue that forgiveness is the art of letting go of how people hurt and harm us. We don’t get bent out of shape, we don’t seek revenge, we don’t get passive aggressive. We move along with life. This isn’t to say that we allow this behavior to continue, or forget what’s happened. We don’t excuse bad behavior; a person’s actions indicate they are not safe to trust, but trusting and forgiveness are not the same. We may very well have to distance ourselves from unsafe people that can’t be trusted. We don’t however, have to haul around all the resentment, bitterness and anger that can come after the wrong.
This is easier said that done, but God asks us to do this, because he knows there can be no real life, renewal or closeness to him if we don’t.
The same friend continued, “But God doesn’t forgive, look at the flood and the tower of Babel! Doesn’t seem like he’s practicing what he’s asked us to preach!”
Ah, to the heart of the matter. We very often act out the beliefs we harbor about God. We don’t realize we do this, and most of the time our beliefs about God go untested and unexamined. If we believe that God isn’t truly forgiving, then it’s easy to act in ways that show this belief.
On it’s face I would agree that sometimes God does do things in history that look harsh, and like he may be executing retribution on people who went against him. But if you keep reading, keep studying and considering I think you’ll find that actually God just has the best boundaries. He does not ever allow for abuse, often what looks like retribution is either letting us go to our own destruction, or occasionally stepping in to save us in a sudden and amazing way.
Sodom and Gomorrah is an awful story of a clear Act-of-God to stop real wickedness, and people are bothered by this. But it says, “he heard the cries of the innocent.” Should not God sometimes step in to save the innocent? He doesn’t always, but I’m sure he does more often than we even realize (and He more often than we like plays the longer game). The story of the flood is another example, but to me it shows God extending the story. Very likely humans were on the fast track to total destruction, and by providing the flood, God is actually carrying us through to a longer story, and the same thing with the tower of Babel - not as punishment in an act of un-forgiveness but as a way to save us from ourselves! (And that story might even be about how God detests uniformity, but instead wants us to be different, unique and complimentary reflections of the Truth.)
How has forgiveness played out in your own life? Do you find it a difficult practice? I think it’s just that, a practice. It’s something you must continue at your whole life. But as we draw closer to God, as we see how much he loves us and how much he has done for us - who are NOTHING - then we begin to see how there is no other option. We have been forgiven more than anything we’d have to forgive another person for.
May God bless you this year, may we continue our practice of forgiveness and may we lean into the knowledge of a forgiving God who is always working behind the scenes to rescue us from ourselves.
With Love,
Sierra Ward