Week 2, day 4: Struggles with forgiveness

“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (NIV)

“Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us.” (Good News)

Joanna Moss writes:

One of my favourite lines from our discussion on this verse came from the motto of previous school Laura had taught at. It was, ‘Every child, every day’ which was supposed to mean that every child was to be treated as if they had a clean slate each day. Every day was a new chance. And this is of course how God is with us, no matter what happens today He still sees us as white as snow, cleared of all debts, shiny and clean.

For all of us, as we reflected on forgiveness, we were struck by the immense grace of God’s forgiveness to us and the often limited and reluctant forgiveness we show to others. Laura spoke about how when we forgive someone, we demonstrate God’s own forgiveness of us. And that when we limit forgiveness, we hinder our own understanding of God’s forgiveness over us. For Andrew, he reflected on how totally undeserving we are of God’s forgiveness but yet we often still judge others and hold resentment against them, even after we have supposedly forgiven them.

Through this reflection, it has exposed to us our own struggles with forgiveness and in letting things go. But as we took this verse in the context of the whole prayer, we came back to the same thought of this being part of a daily practice. For each of us, as we try to intentionally pray this prayer daily, we can practice letting things go, laying things down and placing our hurts and judgements into God’s hands everyday – from the small annoyances to the big offences. With the hope that by practicing forgiveness regularly we can become better at the forgiving the bigger things, and in resting in God’s forgiveness and grace over us.