Set the Table for Forgiveness

My dad planted a garden for many years when I was a kid. I loved to plant stuff with him. Cantaloupe, tomatoes, strawberries (we lived in southern California) and we even planted corn one year. I’m no expert at gardening but then – you don’t really need to be an expert to garden. There are about six things you need to do to grow stuff.

1. Have good soil
2. Till the ground
3. Fertilize as needed
4. Plant something
5. Water
6. Weed as needed

Now this is deceptively simple. You need to do them in a particular order, or it will not work. If you do any of them too much it will come to nothing. Some items on this list are more important than others. Were you to fail in weeding, there still might be a harvest but not one as good as it could have been. If you fail to water or forget to plant the seeds, all your previous efforts and all the work you might do going forward are futile. These are simple steps, but none can be ignored. If you do them all correctly with balance and timing, the results are pleasantly out of proportion to the effort you put in.

There is no word more powerful to me than relationship. This is the single thing that we were created for. God made us to be in relationship with Him, and He made us with a deep longing to be in healthy relationships with others. As important as relationship is, we rarely think much about it, and as a result we often neglect some terribly important things that can devastate our ability to relate to God or each other. Like gardening, there are only a few things needed for relationships to grow.

1. Love
2. Thankfulness
3. Self-sacrifice
4. Time together/talking
5. Mutual Trust
6. Common love for Mexican food (just my opinion)
7. Forgiveness

We could spend a good deal of time discussing each of these, but I’d like to focus on just one right now. No, not thankfulness; I’d like to think deeply about forgiveness right now. Forgiveness is to relationship like water is to a garden. It’s a deal breaker. We cannot survive without it. Our culture doesn’t seem to care about this much, as if it is unimportant or even impossible to actually do. I would propose that we were created in such a way that we were not supposed to HAVE to be forgiving. In the Garden of Eden there was no sin, no betrayal, and no abuse. Therefore, there was nothing to give forgiveness for. The world we live in is NOT the Garden of Eden, and it is in fact full of people who sin, betray, and abuse. So why on earth would I want to forgive anyone anything they have done against ME??!! Because unforgiveness is toxic and it will first damage me and then all of my relationships. Especially my relationship with God.

“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.  But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15)

This is a verse that sends a chill down my spine. It comes directly after the Lord’s Prayer. Now this does not refer to my salvation as a born-again believer in Jesus Christ; it does, however, mean that if I refuse to forgive those who have actually done me harm, it will separate me in some profound way from God. This is a relational disaster, and it will absolutely affect all earthly relationships as well. It’s not that God wants us to do a thing that will just be hard and hurt us; He wants to free us from this toxic sludge that is killing our relationships. He tells us we must forgive so that we can be free and whole. But what if I can’t forgive? All of us have been hurt, and some have been hurt badly and on purpose. If you are finding it impossible to forgive, I want you to know that there is hope. If you cannot pray to forgive—you can pray that God will help you to forgive. This is the kind of prayer God loves to answer. You can also begin to pray FOR the person you are having trouble forgiving. God can work through that, too. He has done that with me. As I prayed, my heart softened toward that person, and it became possible to finally forgive. I would also suggest that you confess your unforgiveness to a safe person who will also pray you into and then through forgiveness. When I was struggling with forgiveness, I was overwhelmed by the prospect that,

“Well now they will totally get away with it!”

It felt like a duty to never forgive, or they will win and I will lose. Anne Lamott said it well;

“In fact, not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.” ¹

Romans 12:19 tells us,

“Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say,

‘I will take revenge;
I will pay them back,’
says the Lord.”

God has promised to be the one who judges and who takes revenge. I am not up to the task, and being bitter about it only hurts me. God is waiting for you to give this toxic waste up so that He can pull you into His arms. It’s what you were made for. This Thanksgiving, be a forgiver. Be freed and fall into the arms of God in a new way. That would be something to be truly thankful for this year!