This week's Theme: The Place of God
Day 1: Ought Against Any
I recently learned of the death of someone I once knew. I had not seen her in many years, and on the rare occasions that she would come to mind by way of association or location or mutual connection, the memory would not hold any especial fondness. I remembered well the considerable harm she did me in my early years as a newcomer in a new country.
As I processed the news of her death, a few things came into focus. I thought of the subtle ways we can hold unforgiveness and never even understand or acknowledge that we do. I was confronted with the truth that although I had never nursed an active grudge against this individual—and in fact rarely even thought of her—my subconscious associations were far from neutral.
It would be easy to misinterpret my thoughts as “guilt”— they weren’t. I felt no weight or burden, only a realization of the truth that in many ways we relegate people or events to files in our memory that are deceptively marked closed. But from time to time a drawer is jarred loose, and old, musty, whiffs of the past swirl and linger— mislabeled as something other than unforgiveness.
It was a gentle lesson from the Holy Spirit that forgiveness is thorough, and unreserved, and complete. The old King James translation of Jesus teaching on forgiveness is so beautifully strong and straightforward:
And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses (Mark 11:25 – KJV).
Ought against any. Powerful words that rattle every bracket and hinge of those old storage cabinets. For ultimately, all trespass is against God. And a dying Savior on a cross nullified my “right” to hold a grudge—my “right” to withhold forgiveness—even in subtle ways—when He took on all our trespasses, yours and mine, and prayed, “Father forgive them…” (Luke 23:34).
We cannot deny or minimize the pain of hurt, the pain of betrayal, the pain of carelessness, neglect, and willful evil. But we can turn it all over to a God who endured every last transgression on a cross and yet removed them as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).
Forgiveness is a huge leap in faith and trust—one that we are not often willing to take. But even Jesus had to entrust Himself to Him who judges justly (1 Peter 2:23). So how can I seek to usurp His divine authority to forgive? Joseph understood this. “Am I in the place of God?” he asked his brothers (Genesis 50:19).
In the end, much of what we store and conserve is useless, futile, self-defeating and enervating. Buried wounds remain wounds and ooze forever. But Jesus shows us that there is freedom and release in the promise that for those who revere the name of the Lord, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings (Malachi 4:2).
