CHURCH COUNCIL: The Will to Forgive

Sometimes people make us angry. They say hurtful comments. They abandon care for our emotions and embrace the selfish nature of their own. No one can deny that. It’s one of the universal truths of our human existence that sometimes other people are mean. What isn’t universal is what our responses to those actions are. Some people respond with aggression and a thirst for revenge, others respond with a sense of passivity – attempting to blow it off as if nothing happened. While these, and other options, are possibilities, only one option ranks number one: Forgiveness.

Within Christianity, forgiveness is arguably the key component of the New Testament. Belief that Jesus died to forgive our sins and charged us with the command to forgive others “who sin against us” is integral to the Christian faith. But what does that mean? Jesus calls us to forgive a person not seven times, but 77 times (Matthew 18:22). Are we really supposed to give someone else that many chances?

Oftentimes it’s easier to start defining something by first stating what it’s not. Forgiveness is not forgetting what has happened. Just as God doesn’t forget our sins, follies or missteps, neither are we expected to simply forget the acts of others. Forgiveness is also not reconciling with someone who has wronged us.

Rather, forgiveness is an intrapersonal, not necessarily interpersonal, phenomenon. It is a personal choice – an act of will – the will to forgive. Forgiveness is saying, “I recognize what happened. I see it as part of the unchangeable past. I recognize that my dwelling on it will never change what happened and I’m tired of giving whoever wronged me control over how I feel. So I’m choosing to forgive.”

Thus forgiveness is more than a single act; it is a way of life. It is recognition that when we are wronged we have two options: let the wrong fester, let us devote precious psychological resources to playing the blame game and ruminating on what it is that hurt us, or accept the past as history, make necessary changes in life to help protect from the wrong happening again and move on.

Until March 14, the Luther College campus will be engaged in a “Forgiveness Blitz.” The aim of this blitz is to share the positive effects of forgiveness, to have people recognize the benefits that come from adopting a forgiving way of life. The Student Congregation and College Ministries are excited to tie forgiveness into a variety of our worship services together. We are also proud to announce that March 7-14 is the annual Peace Week, coordinated by the Campus Global Concerns groups. This week’s theme is: The Will to Forgive.

The positive effects of forgiveness are undeniable. The connection between God forgiving us and us forgiving one another is well defined. Now is the time to embrace forgiveness, to practice it in our daily lives and to subsequently become better individuals.