Balm of Gilead

There are a lot of words and ideas that are commonly used and communicated every day, and yet if you take a moment to stop and think about them you realize that almost everyone has a different meaning tied to that word. “Love” is one of those words. It’s used all the time, but if you ever ask someone what it means to them you’ll likely find it means something different to them than it means to you (I’ve personally conducted that experiment). One similar word is “forgiveness”. We talk about it all the time, daily we encounter situations where we extend, withhold, and seek forgiveness.

I’ve really struggled knowing what forgiveness is in my lifetime. Especially in church settings, it seems a bit over simplified. It sounds as if it is a simple decision, and once that decision has been made all the fall out will magically be resolved and hurt and disappointment will all disappear.

For example, this week in my New Testament class we studied a story in Matthew chapter 18 that has to do with forgiveness. To be very brief, there was a servant that borrowed roughly millions of dollars from his master, and was unable to repay the debt when it came due. The lord forgave him the debt, seemingly without a future date for repayment, or even a percentage of repayment. That same servant who had been forgiven of millions of dollars then went to a peer, a fellow servant, and threw him into prison for the few thousand dollar debt that the second servant owed the first. When the lord heard about it, he revoked his previous forgiveness and threw the first into prison until the debt was repaid.

In this story, the lord of the servants clearly represents our Savior. Each of us carries a massive debt that is impossible for us to repay any meaningful portion. When we repent and try to follow Jesus Christ, we are forgiven of that huge debt. He has paid all our debt to Heavenly Father, and therefore is free to forgive us according to the terms that He sets.

We all also carry debts to our fellow men that we have offended, and have “loaned out debts” to those who have offended us. These are typically possible to have repaid, although some are definitely much larger debts than others. Big or small, they still are not as large as the debt that we owe our Savior. As we see in the story, whatever forgiveness we give to our fellow men is the forgiveness we shall receive.

That is both comforting and scary. If you are good at forgiving everyone, you can feel pretty comfortable in knowing that you will be forgiven of your sins. However, I am not perfect at forgiving others, and I think most of us fall into that category. So if our forgiveness from our sins depends on the forgiveness that we give to others, how can we ever really be successful? How do we know if we’ve truly forgiven someone else?

I have thought and pondered on this question a lot. I try to say the words “I forgive you”, but sometimes I don’t fully mean it when I say it. I often carry hurt for a while after I have tried to verbally grant forgiveness, and sometimes I don’t really like being around those people anymore. Sometimes people really do break trust, and it would be stupid to place them in a place that would result in hurt again and again. Does that mean that I haven’t really forgiven them?

After a lot of prayer and discussions with trusted mentors, I have come to the conclusion that forgiveness happens when you no longer feel a need to “get even” with the person that has wronged you. When you no longer spend time dwelling on what they did and what you wish would happen, or looking forward to the day when their actions catch up to them as a personal vengeance, you can see them as a Child of God who is imperfect. You can open up to feel charity for them, and sorrow that someday they will have to pay for their actions and it will hurt them a lot. This kind of forgiveness is totally possible to achieve, and opens up the blessings of the mercy of our Savior to all people.

I would invite everyone to not take my word about what forgiveness means, but to study and pray about it, and then apply that answer to your life. I have found a much higher level of peace in my life in this application, and I know that peace will follow anyone who tries their best to forgive their fellowmen.