Her eyes filled up with tears as she confessed what we’ve all probably felt at some point: “Why am I still struggling with forgiveness? I try and try to forgive and I just can’t.”
Do we ever have this forgiveness thing mastered?
I think as long as we walk this broken earth and carry these broken hearts we’ll need to relearn these lessons again and again, but, as with everything, the key to learning forgiveness lies in the gospel, grace, and gratitude.
Consider for a moment Jesus’ parable in Matthew 18, the unforgiving servant:
“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold[h] was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
He was forgiven a LOT. What a gift! Freed from debt! Forgiven! Set free! So what does the forgiven man do?
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.[i] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
This is not only a tragic story, but also a terrifying story. Not sure if you read verse 35. God takes forgiveness very seriously. I’ve always thought about how the man who has been forgiven much should go ahead and forgive the smaller debt of his fellow man, just as we should forgive our fellow men. But this time reading through this story something else struck me. Not what’s there, but what’s not there.
What’s missing between verse 27 and verse 28?
A thank you note.
Gratitude.
After the servant was forgiven this huge sum of money, it says he went right out and found his fellow man who owed him money. Says nothing of thanking his master for the AMAZING grace he’d been shown.
He didn’t stop and thank. He didn’t practice gratitude, stopping long enough to consider what a gift he’d been given.
In the absence of gratitude, entitlement creeps in, pride’s cousin that grabs by the throat and demands we’re paid our due. That we’re given what we deserve.
Stupidly forgetting that what we’re really due is a debt beyond comprehension. That what we really deserve is eternal condemnation. But the answer isn’t in just sitting around all day and thinking about how we deserve to be damned, the answer is in falling to our knees in daily gratitude, reminding ourselves each moment to be thankful always (1 Thess 5:18).
We cannot be thankful and unforgiving at the same time. What the unforgiving servant forgot was to stop and thank.
When we receive each morning, a grace-gift, we do well to stop, kneel, thank God for His forgiveness. Then thank Him for every manifestation of grace you encounter throughout the day. Forgiveness comes naturally to the thankful heart. Read verse 35 again. We desperately need to grow in the grace of forgiveness, amen?
{Let’s begin by practicing gratitude today. Thank you for reading.}