Advent Day 21
Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. (Matthew 18:21-22)
Today, work on forgiving someone. If you are new at this, start small. Begin with something that has had a very minor impact on you, not a major wound that has changed the direction of your life.
Here’s an example. My office is off-campus, so at least once a week I go on campus to spend time with students. Often I’ll see undergraduates handing out flyers or advertisements as I go to the lunch spot. One day a student was handing out flyers for a religious event sponsored by another campus ministry. I read the flyer and thought, “Arrgh! Why didn’t I think of this? This sounds great!” For a moment, I was jealous and angry that someone else had this good idea first.
Well, I thought about it, considered some ways I could improve on the idea if our group ever did it, and let it go. Now, what happened here wasn’t much of a sin, if at all. No one set out to hurt me on purpose. I chose to be jealous. Still, I felt a need to forgive myself, and to “forgive” the other person for being so smart.
The questions I asked myself that day can be used for many of the “small” sins and hurts that we inflict on one another. Give these questions some thought. (Again, if you have a huge wound in your life, you may want to take a different direction; get some help from a trusted wise person if you want to begin the process of forgiving someone who severely wounded you.)
- Who hurt me? Was it really intentional?
- Have I really been insulted or disgraced, or is my feeling of hurt something more like jealousy? It could be a combination: for example, feeling insulted when a respected professor doesn’t like your idea, and being jealous of that professor’s power.
- Does it do me any good to hold on to the hurt feelings?
- Next time a similar situation happens, could I choose to react differently? (In the case of the professor, I could choose to bolster my next idea with more references.)
I think all these questions can go “up the ladder” to more difficult situations as well, but again, I recommend starting small. Most of us have a tough time forgiving others, which is why Jesus preached about it so much!
Today’s daily Scripture reading from the PC(USA): http://gamc.pcusa.org/devotion/daily/2010/12/18/
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