A shoe box full of trust and forgiveness

God has been showing me the same verse all week. Matthew 18 21 - 35:

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

 ²¹ Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
 ²² Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.^[a]
   23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold^[b] was brought to him. ²⁵ Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
   ²⁶ “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ ²⁷ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
   ²⁸ “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.^[c] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
   ²⁹ “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
   ³⁰ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. ³¹ When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
   ³² “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ ³⁴ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
   ³⁵ “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

I have seen this talk presented three different ways, and still struggle so much with this concept.

Forgiveness
Forgiveness is such a difficult thing for me. Sometimes things can be said or done and I don't realise the hurt or offence and it just goes over my head (which to be honest am very grateful for), but then at other times, the tiniest thing cuts through me, and find it so difficult to let go. I just "can't" seem to get over it and forgive.

In the above passage Peter does one of his wonderful, human mistakes by trying to be more like Jesus in his approach, but still completely missing the point.

Oh how I relate to Peter a times! As I said, have been shown this verse so much this week but I still don't quite get it and can't do what must be done.

77 times.
Peter was trying to be really clever with his statement here, he was also trying to show his willingness to be better. In Jewish terms, scholars would have advised you to seek forgiveness 3 times. If by that point you couldn't forgive someone for their actions towards you, you would have then been asked to see a senior member of the community; a senior scholar, Rabbi or even a community health advisor. So, Peter knowing this, tries to be better at his level of forgiving by saying that he won't give up at trying to forgive after 3 attempts before he seeks help, he will try 7 times! Bless him, he meant well in his attempt, but, as usual, Jesus corrects him and says 77 times!

Jesus' point here was not that we should try and forgive 77 times, but that the number of times is irrelevent. We should be looking at the act of forgiveness, not the number of times we try.

Three lessons (some of which are in story form) I have learnt this week about forgiveness have all the same overall meaning.

Mercy

1: Actions that hurt us, actions that we are upset about, are often not in our control. They are usually in the control and therefore a result of others' actions. That doesn't mean that because it wasn't us, that we should forgive. It shows us the concept of control, we cannot control who hurts us but we can control who we forgive. And most of all we can realise we can control our mercy.

God shows us this example:

Micah 7:18-19
Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

Don't we all want to be more like Him?

Let go! Let God.
2: I always struggle with the "Letting Go" part. Often the hurt I'm letting go of is never let go of at all, despite what I convince myself at the time. And then I get hit with the pain of it again, and I struggle then forgiving something I thought I'd already forgiven, when in actual fact I never had, and the hurt is still being clutched next to my heart with all my might, often even stronger than before, because I'm now in denial about it.

In a George Foreman machine it cooks the food, draining off the unwanted juice and fat, with an ideally placed tray to catch it. When cooking food another way, there is always remains of the juice and fat on your food. I see God's hand as the tray that catches our unwanted crap, and we can choose to be grilled and have the hurt drained away, or we can just let ourselves stew in it.

In many sports they talk about using the D (defensive positioning) like to use the d at the end.....Letting go isn't just about letting go; add the defensive D and let GoD.

Simplicity
3. (And my final point):
A man and woman had been married for more than 60 years. They had shared
everything and talked about everything. They had kept no secrets from each
other, except that the little old woman had a shoebox on the top of her closet that
she had cautioned her husband never to open it or ask her about it.
For all those years, he had never thought about the box, but one
day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she
would not recover.
In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the
shoebox and took it to his wife's bedside. She agreed it was time
he should know what was in the box. When he opened it, he found
two crocheted dolls and a stack of money, totaling £25,000.

He asked her about the contents.
"When we were married," she said, "my grandmother told me the
secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me If I
ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doll."
The little old man was so moved; he had to fight back tears. Only
two precious dolls were in the box, She had only ever been
angry with him in all those years of living and loving. He almost
burst with happiness.
"Honey," he said, "that explains the dolls, but what about all of this
money? Where did it come from
"Oh," she said, "that's the money I made from selling the dolls.."


The husband trusted his wife, and respected her. She trusted him too. She got rid of all her hurt, and prevented it too from coming to the foreground and damaging the peace and simplicity of their wonderful life.

This concept helped her marriage; rather than stewing in hurt, carrying her resentment around and taking revenge out on her husband with sharp words, unkind acts etc., she let it go, because it made life simple, easy and happier for her as well as the man she loved.

We all have that simple choice. Make the person who hurt us suffer too, ultimately making both parties miserable, or let go, show mercy, and walk away with both parties happy.

Sometimes we forget the simplicity in the things we are asked to do.

The carrot and the stick of it.

So l'll end with two points very quickly. The first is this from John 20:22-23
And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

That alone is the a lot of responsibility to consider.
And taking from the story, sometimes giving away and giving up the things we need to forgive, and giving them to God, will cost us nothing, and sometimes we may be rewarded in ways we didn't expect.

So for me, God's clearly been showing me this: I need to give bits to Him-there's a lot of proverbial fat to be drained into my George Foreman grill tray. I know even after all of the above, somethings are easier said than done, but l'll definitely try!

Now, just to find a crotchet kit.........