Forgiveness, the Blessing of God

The wisdom that is in forgiveness is irrefutable.  Simply, it works.  Always, ultimately.  It IS the evidence of God in this world, and it is something that never fails, provided we play the long game of obedience to the incontrovertible rules of this life.

It is fine if you disagree.  Go for it!  The fact is, in the long run, the person who cultivates the garden of their heart will succeed where the bitter will fall.  It’s just the way it is.

The ancient book of Proverbs (1:20-22) puts it well:
Out in the open wisdom calls aloud,
    she raises her voice in the public square;
on top of the wall she cries out,
    at the city gate she makes her speech.

“How long will you who are simple love your simple ways?
    How long will mockers delight in mockery
    and fools hate knowledge?”

Woman Wisdom sets it out plainly, and a resounding thread in her message is this: don’t deny, dismiss, diss, or besmirch the truth.  Life will only bite back at you.  The simple, the mockers, the fools in life, are all doomed because of the WAY they go; how they think, behave, and act.  How they refuse responsibility.  How they think life serves them.

The opposite way, however, is the way to blessing.  It is the taking of responsibility.  It is learning, and living, and healing, and growing.  It is the life of service.  And it is forgiveness.

PLAYING THE LONG GAME

The long game is the practice of a fundamentally hope-fuelled faith, characterised by a peaceable patience, figuring that it is always better to cop a short-term loss—even if that loss is devastating—in the hope that overall goal can ultimately be gained.

Playing the long game in life can appear that we are losing from a short-term viewpoint.  But over the longer haul, patience and trust underpin the character of our faith.  Not being bothered by the shorter-term wins and losses, we hold the faith and assess over the decades rather than the weeks.

It is the longer haul that 
will ultimately define us.

A focus on short-term outcomes
produces short-term motivation 
and a harmful constricted vision.

The only way of successfully playing 
the long game is through forgiveness.

Forgiveness is faith in the long game.

~

FORGIVENESS IS BLESSING

What we have received we are destined to give.  The gospel reality of having been forgiven by God—because of what Jesus did in dying on the cross and His being resurrected on the third day—is actually the model way of living.  

God gives us life 
when we exemplify sacrificial living 
with a heart compelled to serve as Jesus did.

The cliché is, “blessed to be a blessing.”  
But it is true.  We ARE blessed to be a blessing.

The testimony of this is on our hearts.  When we RECEIVE God’s blessing, all we want to do is give it away.  That is the testimony of the life changing will of God as it interrupts our selfishness and converts us to give away what we cannot otherwise keep.

We are blessed in giving away 
by receiving what we cannot lose.

The blessing in forgiveness 
is an inner joy, a flourishing of hope, 
and the steady inner residence of peace, 
even as we extend this joy, hope, and peace.

Forgiveness is the blessing of God because it is the beauty of God that vouchsafes victory warding off the risk of defeat, even if forgiveness looks like risking defeat.  Out of the clutches of spiritual death we have been ripped, and we are gracefully saved into the arms of God.

This is a gift of God that wins our hearts away 
from the darker forces of spiritual death 
that desperately seek to annihilate our hope.

This is the restorative medium of life where myriad form of division threatens to disrupt peace and destroy hope.  Peace enables peace, hope propagates hope.  Peace and hope must start from somewhere.

INVITATION TO BLESSING THROUGH FORGIVENESS

It is easy to miss this but think of the irony: there is double the opportunity when we have been terribly hurt, inconsolably transgressed, or tragically betrayed.  It is to REDEEM what was taken, and the only way back to a peace that only God can give is to forgive.

It seems counterintuitive 
to redeem what was taken:
the way back to peace is to forgive 
while remembering and honouring
how and why we extended such grace.

Forgiving does not mean forgetting; indeed, we cannot forget.  We forgive at the same time as remembering!  We never forget what was done but we thank and praise God for His power; a power He gives us to overcome anything that would poison the peace He came to give and that which He gives eternally.

We extend grace despite the harms done to us. 
We hold the power of God in our hands 
when we forgive despite those harms done.

If we see that God is genuinely in control of life and of our lives, we can then wonder why He has allowed these things to occur.  We know that, despite Christ’s victory, according to Ephesians 5:15-17, “the days are evil.”  None of us will endure this life unscathed, no matter how committed we are to kindness and blessing others.  Besides, we are given opportunities of redemption from all manner of setbacks, just as the resurrection was redemption from death on a cross.

When we forgive despite what was done to us, we extend a grace which is an invitation to blessing—for everyone we touch, not just the one we forgive.

When we forgive, we exude life.

When we comprehend that our world expands in proportion to our extension of grace, our heart is opened even more in trusting God for more and more blessing.

Forgiveness truly is an act of faith in the promise of God 
to heal what cannot be healed without it.