There is a difference between having a desire to live a life of forgiveness and being empowered to live a life of forgiveness. Many people have adesire to forgive others when wronged, myself included. But rare is the person who is empowered to forgive in freedom.
From my experience there have been times where I have been wronged and hurts steamed up within me whenever I would uncover those hurting moments. Remembering what Jesus said to His right hand man, to forgive 70X7, I know that is what I had to do. It seems like the "Christian" thing to see forgiveness as a privilege, but I don't know really any one who sees it that way. Forgiveness is tough to flesh out.
Conventional Christian wisdom says to forgive and forget, just keep giving it up to God, and things will eventually be okay, but when a person faces the reality within his or her heart there is a cry for justice! Everything wrong deed needs to be accounted for. Every human being has been given by God a justice gene, except this gene cannot be mutated, or lost in the passing on from generation to generation.
When we go spelunking in the deep caves of our soul we discover a war between the desire to forgive our enemies and the cry for them to be rightly judged for what they have done. Vengeance is such a natural reaction, and in reality it's for good reasons. We don't have to be taught to desire righteous accountability for oppressors, it's just within us. That innate longing for justice at all costs matched with the wisdom of the day that says, "just forgive, forget about what happened, act as though you haven't seen a thing" leaves us in a gnawing tension that will not go away no matter how hard we squint our eyes, grit our teeth and wish.
The good news in this is that our God loves justice.
The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love. (Psalm 33:5 NIV)
He is a God that is to be feared, not just respected or revered, He is to be trembled before. He is not passive about mistreatment. I sure wouldn't be if I saw my wife being mistreated! Proverbs 6:34 says, "For jealousy arouses a husband's fury, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge." Isn't one perspective of Jesus our Husband?
It's God's love for us that He holds an account for every wrong done. He is angry towards unrighteousness (including ours). He is the righteous Judge. He is not just "a Judge" He is "The Judge." That is the very essence of His being. He does not temporarily take off His Justice hat to put on His mercy hat. God always loves justice and always loves mercy, all the time.
In the same way that we need a merciful God, we also need a Judge. Until we have the realization that God will never forget the wrong done to us will we not be able to forget the wrong done to us. Because God never forgets, we can. It is liberating to realize that everyone we have ever come into contact with will answer to God (including ourselves). God addresses each person in His own perfect timing, whether its when He comes back (see
Matthew 25:31-46) or some other time. Knowing that God is not passive about injustice empowers us to forgive and live mercifully.
I remember the first time I heard about the justice of God as it relates to our hurts it caused me to cry out in mercy for those who have wronged me. Now, understanding the fear of the Lord, letting His fierce anger against injustice sink into the knowledge of my heart and emotions is something I long deeply for because of my lack of feeling it. The times where God has given me revelation of His heart for justice it has always caused me to well up a cry of mercy for those who have mistreated me. I had joy in forgiving them too.
In those moments I came to the realization that there is a big and very liberating difference between desiring to forgive and being empowered to forgive.
***These thoughts have been adapted from Shelley Hundley's book called, "A Cry for Justice."
