Forgiveness, Like Muddy Children

I am reading the book Influencer by Patterson et al.  In a rather meandering way, sprinkled with stories and examples, the authors describe some of the underlying science behind motivation, behavior change and influence.  The objective of the book is to empower leaders to be agents of positive change in their organizations.  While evaluating why individuals and people-groups do or do not change, the authors state that two essential ingredients must be present:  ability and motivation.  People must have the skills, training on specific desirable behaviors.  The desirable behaviors and the end result must also be connected with value, with a deeply seated sense of self, with larger personal values.  In order to change behaviors, people must both be confident that they are capable and be motivated to perform the behavior.  

Based what scripture tells us about forgiveness and faith, we are both capable and motivated to forgive.  However, neither our ability nor our motivation comes from us.  God has given us both. With the disciples, we cry out to God “Lord increase my faith!”  And He has and does; we are blessed with the faith to move mountains and uproot trees through the power of His Spirit in us, through the hearing of His Word and the participation in the sacraments.  Through my baptism I am united with Christ, united with both His death and His resurrection (Romans 6); I am no longer a slave to sin but freed by His sacrifice.  I no longer lack the ability to obediently live in faith but rather have the power of God in Christ in me.  When I feel that I just cannot forgive, that is not the truth.  It may be that forgiveness is still difficult, or that I do not want to (am not motivated) to forgive, but I am able.  2 Peter 1: 3 tells me that God has given me everything I need for life and godliness; He gives me the ability to forgive.  

Change requires not just ability but also motivation, desire, the “why.”  I know that there are many good reasons to forgive, reasons seated in secular and scientific rationale:  lack of forgiveness is not healthy, it leads to high blood pressure, indigestion and sleeplessness, it leads to bitterness, it damages relationships, it is a waste of energy.  All of this is true and it is meaningful and relevant to remind myself of these truths.  But the larger truth is this:  God in Christ has forgiven me the sum total of my sin and sinfulness.  How can I withhold the same from those who sin against me?  Jesus makes this clear in His parable in Matthew 18 that those who withhold from others the mercy of forgiveness will be rejected by God and consigned to hell.  Unforgiveness is unforgivable.  Failure to forgive others is a failure of faith, a failure of love, a failure of obedience.  The forgiveness of God in Christ should motivate me to forgive others; I should at the end of the day say that I am an unworthy servant who has just done my duty.

Should. Should. Should.  Lord increase my faith.

I read and see with the eyes of faith that I should forgive, that there is really no other recourse, no other appropriate response for one forgiven by God.  But forgiveness toward others is yet another area—one area of all the areas—in which I fail miserably because of my sinful nature.  Even in my inability to forgive others I must fall onto the forgiveness of God.  The good that I want to do, this I do not do; I acknowledge with my mind and often even with my heart that I owe forgiveness to all in response to the forgiveness I have in Christ, but I still withhold it.  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God that He forgives even my failures to forgive.  Forgiveness toward others must be a continual process.  The seven times a day, the seventy times seven, this is I believe a description of the constant process of forgiveness—I forgive with my mind and heart, but that selfsame mind and heart raises up with rage and bitterness and forgiveness must begin again, and it must start with repentance of the failed forgiveness.  Like mushrooms popping up overnight, like a terrible game of whack-a-mole, like the constancy of dirty dishes and dirty laundry, forgiving others is a game that is never finished in this world.

And I groan under this burden of failed forgiveness.  I cry out to God and He helps me in my weakness (Romans 8: 26), He strengthens me to run with perseverance (Hebrews12: 1, 2), and He does not condemn me because I am in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).  Seeing this pattern of failed forgiveness in my own life—this need to constantly come to God repenting of my own failures—opens my eyes to the need of others for continued and constant forgiveness.  CS Lewis describes us as“muddy and tattered children” who need to keep “picking ourselves up” by God’s grace; he describes heaven as a place where “the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, the clean clothes in the airing cupboard….”.  We muddy and tattered children who constantly need forgiveness for our many sins, including our failed forgiveness of others, are on a journey home to heaven where the declaration of righteousness given to us in Christ will become true and complete righteousness in eternity where we will have a new nature along with the new heaven and new earth.  This “Tough Mudder” of a race on earth is a pretty horrible and exhausting event, and if I dwelt on only one moment of failure or on each slip into the mire, I would quickly lose hope.  But the ability and motivation to keep moving do not belong to me; I am gifted them both by the grace and power of God.   I know that no matter how many falls, no matter how many failures, no matter how filthy I become, I am declared righteous in Christ and the clean towels and warm water of heaven are waiting for me.

So what does this look like for me?  It is not enough to point to the end result and say this is my goal—I want to have forgiven this event, this person, this sin against me.  The goal is “to have forgiven”, as in an event which occurred in the past.  To get to this desired future state requires a daily path.  The daily behaviors must be ones of forgiveness, of intentionally rejecting bitterness and anger, of refusing to dwell on the past either as the memory of an event or the continued, present emotional response to the event.  The behavior must be to reject the pull of the mud puddle, to not allow myself to wallow in negativity, with both imagination and intellect committed to moving past.  I am not one who dwells on sin, I am not one who holds on to bitterness, I am not one who denies forgiveness—I am a redeemed and forgiven child of God.   The motivation is to live out God’s love, to respond in joyful humility and love toward others even as God in Christ has forgiven and blessed me.  I have both the ability and the motivation, both come from God.  I will fail and founder but I do not give up.  I may not achieve “to have forgiven”, to be able to look back and say “I have forgiven this, it is in my past, it does not impact my present and will not impact my future.”  But I must at least attempt.

Heavenly Father, You never tire of forgiving Your dearly loved children; Your mercy is new every morning, great is Your faithfulness.  I praise You for the love, compassion and mercy You continually pour out on me.  Lord, forgive me when I fail to forgive others, when I withhold from others the compassion You generously show to me.  Strengthen me with Your Spirit to live out my faith in the form of forgiveness and love toward others.  Comfort me with the hope of eternity with You, the hope of being truly renewed and reborn with all of creation where everything old is replaced with the holy and new, and where the need to forgive will end.  In Jesus Name AMEN.