Last week we discovered that forgiveness is the act of renouncing revenge for insult or injury suffered. In forgiving those who hurt us we rely on God to do what we cannot, that is, to overcome injustice, restore our dignity and heal all wounds. Forgiveness is an act of faith.

In today’s post I want to consider the positive side of forgiveness. In forgiving, we refuse to take revenge. We don’t act. But in not acting in a destructive way, we do an act of love. The first step in loving your enemy is not returning injury for injury and insult for insult. The loving dimension in forgiveness is the space it gives for repentance. In forgiving wrongs we demonstrate the possibility of freedom from the cycle of “eye for an eye” justice. Forgiving our enemies expresses confidence in God’s power to change enemy. It is an act of loving faith, a faith that believes in the power of God’s love to do for others what it has done for us. In forgiving, we suffer by endure insult and injury for the enemy’s sake. And in suffering for our enemy we become instruments through which the suffering love of Jesus touches the enemy. This activity of suffering love brings us to the joyful side of forgiveness.

Think about the unhappiness we bring on ourselves when we keep a record of every insult and injury done to us! There is no limit and no end to the wrongs we encounter even in one day. The unforgiving, like emotional bloodhounds, can detect insult in the slightest gesture and threat of injury the least movement. The list of negative emotions associated with our sensitivity to injustice is long: fear, anger, hatred, envy, resentment, bitterness, sadness, nostalgia, regret, despair, guilt. Fear anticipates injury, and anger defends against insult. Anger becomes hatred when it is nourished with memories of ancient wrongs. Envy sees injustice in others getting what we would like to have, and resentment turns to bitterness when we feel we’ve been passed over for honors we deserve. Nostalgia unhappily remembers long passed happiness, and sadness settles in when hope of better days fades into expectation of endless disappointment. And these feelings are compounded by the dim awareness that we are responsible for our unhappiness.

But what a difference forgiveness makes! Faith in God’s power at work for us and his love toward us frees us from the power of insult and injury. In place of fear, anger, hatred, envy, resentment, bitterness, sadness, nostalgia, regret, despair and guilt, we find love, joy, peace and hope. The causes of negative emotions have been exposed as impotent. Insults are empty nothings, lies with no basis in reality. Nothing and no one can diminish our worth and dignity because it is grounded in the unchangeable love of God for us. And injury cannot touch our true lives, which are “hidden with Christ in God” (Col 2:3). Hence we can forgive all wrongs. Our experience of insult and injury, instead of occasioning unhappy emotions, becomes an occasion to experience the love of Christ acting through us, healing, saving and repairing the world.

Next week we address the question, “How can God forgive?” We can love because God love us, and we can forgive because God can forgive…but what empowers God forgive?

To be continued…