1/19/2024 0 Comments Forgive seventy times seven![]() ![]() My mind began to get the message that I meant it when I asked God to help me forgive. But I also saw how often my mind was going in a not-Jesus direction. I picked out some verses and said them again and again and again. The first day I started quoting scripture I think I did have to do it 77 times. But then Satan got in my imagination and thought to imagine conversations that either made me feel justified to be hurt or nursed the anger along. Satan and his minions flee when we proclaim God’s Word.īut I never saw the conversation in my head as my entertaining temptation. Quoting Scripture at temptations makes them go away. I have taught them to confront the “evildoer” in a respectful way.īut this Lent, working on a not-big, but troublesome, struggle to forgive, I have found a new way to fire the internal attorney: I have encouraged them to put such thoughts in a larger context and to see if over-generalization or “awfulizing” is happening. ![]() I have taught them to contain them in a box. I have taught people to imagine such thoughts are on boats that float away down a river. It is not a voice of peace.Īs a therapist I have taught many strategies to fire this internal attorney. Whatever it is, it is NOT the voice of God. Sometimes it is your voice, naming your wounds. Sometimes it is memory of the hurtful event played again and again. Sometimes it is the person who has caused the wound, sounding absolutely despicable so you feel justified having ill feelings. Sometimes that voice sounds like you telling the person off. There is this accusing voice that keeps you fired up. That is a way to look at what happens in your mind. How can we stop conversations in our heads to forgive 77 or 777,000 times? A friend of mine, Ron McClain, has a wonderful way of naming what to do: “Fire the attorney in your head!” We are no longer just touched by evil, we hold it. Through this conversation in our head the evil done to us takes up residence within us. It can cause us to say and do hurtful things. It can come to plague us in the silence of the night. That conversation may lead us to be afraid-or angry. When we begin to protect ourselves, a conversation begins inside our heads that causes us to think of our pain again and again. We receive mercy, but we do not pass it on. As we do, the flow of love from God through us stops. We begin to protect our feet, as the servant did in the parable Jesus told Peter in today’s Gospel. We each yell “ouch” and remember the pain. Whether he means to step on mine or not, he steps on mine. Whether I mean to step on my brother’s toes or not, I do it. Evil as ordinary inconsiderateness, selfishness, anger, defensiveness, human frailty is present in most of our lives on a regular basis. But this thought seems to be the root of difficulties with forgiveness.Įvil-as abuse, war, violence, or injustice-is present at some point in virtually every life. There is more to forgiveness than simply stopping the thought that stops the flow of loving others because God has first loved us. It keeps evil from taking up residence in us. My work on myself and with couples and families through 25 years as a therapist has taught me that Jesus’ standard of forgiveness is a really good thing. ![]() It also gives us some guidance about how to actually do what Jesus asks of Peter–and us–today. Looking at forgiveness this way adds meaning for understanding what mercy is to God. This could be for 77 instances of hurt or of one instance which is remembered and nursed as resentment in our hearts 77 or 770 or 777,000 times. This meaning is that Jesus may be asking us to forgive in our minds and hearts as many times as anger, judgment, and blame pop up. Maybe that meaning holds, but today I want to talk about another meaning of forgiveness. I used to think when Jesus answered Peter’s question today about how many times he must forgive with “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times,” that Jesus meant we accept someone’s regret for hurting us, no matter how many times a hurtful or unjust action is repeated. ![]()
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