Finding Forgiveness – Part 4

DAILY BYTE

The thing about un-forgiveness is that it potentially not only imprisons us but also those around us. The famous Christian author, Phillip Yancey, in a talk he gave last year in Durban, spoke about chains or cycles of ungrace. Ungrace is a word he made up to describe situations where we refuse to show one another forgiveness or grace.

Yancey illustrated this point by speaking of a situation where his grandmother could never bring herself to forgive her drunken, abusive father, even after he had cleaned up, become a Christian and asked for forgiveness. She said to him ‘I never want see you again’ ... and kept her promise. Her daughter (Yancey’s mother) grew up watching this, and when she and one of her sons (Yancey’s brother) came into a sharp conflict she repeated to him those words: ‘I never want to see you again’. And so far she has also kept her promise.

Yancey tied this story up by saying that he recently was on the phone to this same brother discussing the brother’s divorce, when his brother said of his wife in an angry voice ‘I never want to see her again’.

Yancey described the stunned silence as both of them instantly recognized their own mother’s voice speaking through his brother (indeed their own grandmother’s voice). Chains or cycles of ungrace are passed down almost like genetic code! Forgiveness breaks these chains and it sets prisoners free.

When I was ministering at a previous church, there was a woman in the congregation who many years previously, had endured the trauma and humiliation of her husband cheating on her and then leaving her for another someone else. She struggled for many years to forgive him. This struggle made her and her children miserable. She eventually resolved to go to a colleague of mine for counselling and after much time, and many difficulties, she finally managed to forgive.

Then, unexpectedly one day, she received a phone call from her estranged husband. He had contracted AIDS/HIV, his medical aid had depleted, his lover had thrown him out and he had no where to go ... so she took him in. This woman cared for and nursed her cheating husband until he died. Now let’s get something straight – she wasn’t IN love with him any more, she wasn’t trying to recapture a lost marriage, she wasn’t trying to patch anything up. She had simply forgiven him and now was able to love him with a Christ-like love.

You may say what she did was crazy, or silly, or impossible. But let me ask you a question. What do you think she passed onto her children through that action? I think she passed on a God-like grace, a larger than life spirit, a generous heart & attitude, and a freedom from prisons. I think she made real men and woman of God of her children. And I think that through those actions she broke a potential chain of ‘ungrace’, and instead left behind her an inspiring legacy of love.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Lord, it is our desire to leave behind us a legacy of love rather than un-forgiveness and hatred. Help us to understand that when we refuse to forgive, we potentially entrap not only ourselves but others as well, especially those who look to us for spiritual and moral guidance. Help us to live our lives in a way that is true to your amazing grace. Amen.

FOCUS READING

Read the whole Matthew 18:21-35 in your Bible.

(V35) "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart."