Recently, someone close to me did something that had a significant adverse impact on my life. To be honest, by the end of this post, the person will know who they are, but the rest of you will have to remain in the realm of the abstract. I won’t get overly explicit. Suffice to say that the ramifications of this persons actions include large and permanent changes to both my present and future life and lifestyle. Increasing the difficulty of this situation is the fact that this is the third time this person has done this. I know the saying, “Once is shame on you, twice is shame on me, there won’t be a third time.” The truth of the matter is that saying is too simple to be applied to reality. On each of the previous occasions the person was truly contrite and swore that they would never make the same mistake. For a while, they were able to keep their promise. But eventually they slipped and succumbed to temptation again. Soon they realized that they had made a mistake and attempted to retreat, only they had gone too far and it was too late. I ended up picking up the pieces. Unfortunately, this time, I’m not sure that I’m able to pick up the pieces. I still haven’t felt the complete consequences of this latest blunder. Finally, this person is not someone whom I can simply cast off as a poor choice of friends or bad business acquaintance. My life and theirs are indelibly intertwined and are simply inextricable from one another.
This leads to the first part of this post. How many times can you forgive a person? Jesus provided the answer to Peter. Peter asked if he should forgive someone who transgressed against him seven times. Jesus replied that he should forgive seven times seven times. For those of you unfamiliar. Jewish custom placed the ultimate limit at seven times. The phrase, “seven times seven times” was the equivalent of forever. It was a saying, like, ” til the cows come home.” So there’s my example. Forgiveness is forever. Every time a person asks for forgiveness, we are required to forgive them. However, it doesn’t seem right that we should be required to open ourselves to the same injury time and time again. At a certain point, there has to be a change. The person who is committing the transgression needs to have the weight of their actions brought home to them. While Jesus commands us to forgive as many times as forgiveness is asked, it is also clear that there are consequences for actions.
This brings us to the second part of this post. The bible is clear that there are consequences for actions. Aside from the obvious stories such as Ananias and Sapphira and Achan who were killed immediately for their sins, there are others. The most notable act of forgiveness followed by consequences is that of David. David committed some truly heinous crimes, notably adultery and then murder. Still, God forgave him. God’s consequence to David, however, was that the “sword would never leave David’s house”. Reading about the rest of David’s life reveals this to be true. His life was plagued with war, family strife, betrayal, and other problems that would really make a good soap opera. It is obvious that although God forgave David, there were still consequences for David’s actions.
So what can be done when one person hurts another? The simple answer is to forgive, but DON’T forget. I can do that. It’s easy for me to forgive this person. In fact, it’s harder to change in a way that would bring any sort of consequences for their actions upon them. However, I’m very certain that if I don’t take some sort of action, then this will happen again. And the next time, I’m quite certain I won’t be able to keep from falling completely.
I’ll probably delete this post in a bit. But I’ll leave it sit for the time being.
Later Days, All!!