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For us to say that we forgive someone is one of the easiest
things in the world for most of us. For us to feel it can, at times,
be a long and difficult struggle. I have often said that I feel the
reason that so many people attach a set of proscribed activities and
rigid dogmatic rules to their Christian faith are because the rules
that Jesus taught and shared are often among the most difficult for
many human beings to live and follow; loving our enemies, doing good to
those that do harm to us, and always forgiving others when they sin
against us. But it is in the following of these guidelines Jesus
blessed and gifted us with that we come a little bit closer, in my
opinion, to touching what God is really all about -- love, mercy,
compassion, kindness, and grace.
To me the way we show our gratitude for all God has given us,
all God has done for us in our lives, all the blessings we have known,
is to show it by expressing our love for all the rest of God's
children, which means all of us. One of the ways we can show that love
is by seeing the Christ and the God that is in everyone, even when they
are hiding it below a mask of pain, hurt, and anger they might be
feeling that causes them to react to us in ways that are at times less
than loving, at other times downright hurtful. God, our Creator sees
us, in my view, as beautiful and perfect, just as God sees all of
creation. It is we who allow that at times to be obscured by fear and
pain.
I do not have a belief in the theory of "original sin" in the
traditional sense, or the doctrine of "all have sinned and fallen
short" in the literal sense, yet I do. I don't believe that anyone is
truly "rotten to the core" or that anyone is born a "bad seed". To me this
belief only perpetuates in us the things that cause us to do rotten things
sometimes, those things like low self-esteem. What I
do believe in, however, is the fact that I don't think that any of us
can say that we have gone through our lives and never hurt another of
God's children, whether deliberately or on purpose. I know from experience that fear, which usually takes
over if we have turned away from God or have allowed ourselves to feel
distant from God, can cause us to act in some very destructive and
potentially hurtful ways. I have done this, and I
have felt the ensuing pain, only to find out later that if I had
simply turned inward and listened to and trusted in God, that I never
would have felt the need to act out of fear.
I feel that Jesus taught that the greatest wrong we could do was
to deliberately and selfishly act in a way that hurt another one of
God's children. I feel that the only way we sin against God is by
sinning against one another and acting in unloving ways, and
that yes, sometimes we do fall short. To me if we are truly loving God
more than anything, we would never dream of deliberately harming
another human being. Yet sometimes, despite the best intentions and
effort, we still do. That, to me, is the human fallibility that Jesus rose
above in His Divinity. And when we act in a way that hurts another,
then sometimes they hold that hurt within and give it back to us, and
we volley it back and forth creating a lose-lose situation, the type
that forgiving can rescue us from. Or sometimes the hurt that is given
to another can remain inside of them, and they pass it on to another,
who passes it on to another, until it has spread into something that is
one of the worst form of cancer, a legacy of pain and revenge,
sometimes exacted on those who are innocent which could have been
avoided had forgiveness been practiced. Or sometimes, worst of all, we
may hurt someone and be unable to forgive ourselves and exact revenge
on ourselves through self-hate and self-hurt. But there is a cure for
all of these and it begins with forgiveness.
To me, forgiving breaks that chain of hurt and starts the
negative events that created that chain working backward until it
creates a good thing, an opportunity for growth and love and
reconciliation, from a downward spiral to an upward one. Who cannot
see the beauty in the depth of Jesus' love for all of God's children,
even the ones who had Him crucified, as he forgave them for succumbing
to the illusion of their fear of what He was teaching and acting
destructively? Who cannot agree with the feeling it gives one to be
able to love and forgive those who are persecuting us for who we are,
simply because they have been made to fear, out of their
misunderstanding of what it means to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or
transgender, or different in some way from what they were taught by
those in fear of us to be "acceptable?" To me the greatest challenge
we all face as LGBT Christians is forgiving those whom are acting out of
fear and misunderstanding and creating pain and hurt for us. Who
cannot see the tremendous opportunity for us to let our light and
understanding of what Jesus taught us to live bring light to the lives
of the entire Christian community, the LGBT Communities and the world?
Not forgiving has consequences, and they are not always small.
I relate back to the events of the past year that we have been
witnessing on the news; the tragic death of the students in Littleton,
Colorado recently is a prime example for both the need and the
opportunity for forgiveness. Did those boys who committed the shooting
have an opportunity for reconciliation? Did they know about
forgiveness? In my opinion they were acting in revenge -- revenge for
their pain and for feeling outcast and being ridiculed for being
"different". As a bisexual I can understand exactly what that means.
I have been bashed and ridiculed by conservative Christians and
non-Christians alike. But Jesus speaks from my heart and tells me, no
matter how hard it is, you must forgive, otherwise the personal
consequences could be devastating. I think what happened to these poor
boys in Colorado was that no one ever showed them the release, the
inner peace that comes from forgiving those who have hurt us. Those who
hurt us have, in my eyes, been temporarily blinded from the Truth, that
everyone is a child of God and therefore precious, no matter what
personal prejudice or fear we allow to interfere with that perception
at times. The pain built inside them and turned to rage, and now there
is a new challenge, for the rest of us to forgive the hurtful thing
they did. The same thing for those who have committed hate crimes
against us just for our being LGBT people. It is my sincere belief that
it is out of a distorted vision of God they may have been taught to believe,
and their own fear clouding the reality that we are all God's creation
and therefore should be loved as such.
I have heard it said that a rattlesnake, which bites itself, will
eventually die from its own poison. This to me is the perfect analogy
of what not forgiving can do to our soul. It can slowly become bitter
and poisoned, until we can to our own dismay, find ourselves wanting to
strike back a bit like a rattlesnake and poison another -- sort of a
"misery loves company" type solution that isn't a solution at all. But
I think that until we are truly able to forgive even the worst hurt
that we cannot understand what true unconditional love -- like that which
Jesus represented -- really is.
Jesus had so much to say about forgiving and that we should not set
limitations upon it. I recall being in a Bible study and hearing about the
time when Jesus forgave a person and those around Him were astounded that
He seemed to have the authority to forgive human sins. In my mind it clicked that He was telling us that we have the
power and ability to forgive others, even when they have wronged us. We
have the ability to do what at one time it was thought only priests,
rabbis, and religious leaders were able to do. He was also telling us what
we needed to do to avoid the consequences of hurt -- the consequences that
take place as we reap what we sow. Emmet Fox once wrote, "Christ is the
Lord of karma", and though I do not visualize God or Jesus or the Holy
Spirit as a source of punishment, I do believe in sowing and reaping as a
Natural Law of the Universe God Created. I have witnessed it, both positively
and negatively too many times to disregard it as a superstition. I believe if one does not forgive and decides to
hold in the pain and possibly cut themselves off from another person who
acted in error, creating brokenness of relationship, everyone loses.
Forgiving is a win-win situation. Through forgiveness God can rescue us
from the poison of fear, and if we feel we have injured another of God's
children, we have been assured by Jesus that if we forgive, we too shall be
forgiven.
One of the things Jesus said that has always astounded me was the simple words, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." This to me and many
others is the cornerstone of what it means to be a practicing Christian,
and was so shocking, if not incomprehensible to the religious leaders of his
day. He was saying that what God desires more than anything else is for us
to treat one another with Love, Mercy, and Compassion -- that
overrides any dogma or doctrine. What I have found disheartening at times,
however, is that there are many religious leaders today that find this as
being the core of the Christian faith as an incomprehensible idea. I
recently participated in a religious forum where a conservative Christian
called me and all other LGBT people an "abomination" even when we are living
with honesty, integrity and love for God and neighbor and yet he went on to
extol how he knew that Jesus would support the death penalty. I asked him about forgiveness and he just began quoting scriptures to defend his
position. I wondered where, if at all, forgiveness figured into his
Christian faith. It made me exercise my own ability to forgive his fear
and prejudice.
For someone like myself, forgiveness has not always been the easiest
at times, and I think one of the most difficult involved a person who
claimed to be a friend who stole over $15,000 dollars from me under false
pretenses and worse than that, lied to me about things that hurt me very
deeply. I recall in those days, before I had reconciled with God attempting suicide and standing at this
person's front door, wrists bleeding, and in tears, and listening as they
reassured me with lies to keep me from begging them to give me money back.
I recall being in a relationship with
someone who cared nothing about me and took advantage of me in order to
benefit themselves. And I recall the homophobia and heterosexism and hate I
endured at the hands of the church growing up, the silent screams I would
hear inside as my parents condemned homosexuality and bisexuality, not
knowing how they were hurting me, and the discrimination I receive still
today from members of both the homosexual and heterosexual communities for
being bisexual. But all I have to do in order to forgive is to look within
and listen to my heart, look at and cherish the beautiful blessings God has
given me in life, and know the peace I have found through practicing the
teachings of Jesus and then I feel no need to hold a grudge or hurt someone
back for what they did to hurt me. When we know that God loves us, cares
for us, and accepts us unconditionally then there is no way that we could
ever hurt another of God's Children, for all we desire is to thank God by
embodying Christ and Loving One Another.
And for those of us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered
the challenge to forgive is there at times, especially when we find
ourselves called to forgive those who are trying to tell us that we are not
acceptable to God. The very best wisdom I can pass on in this instance is
to remember that they have been hurt, too. They have been hurt by believing in
a God that loves some and not others, that behaves a lot more like human
beings can at their worst than the God embodied in Jesus Christ, a God that
many of them fear instead of rejoice in. As LGBT Christians I feel the most
powerful thing we can do is let Christ shine through us and forgive
the way they hurt us whether intentional or unintentional and allow God
to work through the witness of our lives to educate them that the fears they
have are unfounded. When we forgive we break the chain of hurt and pain
and God begins to create in us a new heart, one of love and compassion and
reconciliation.
Think to yourself: is there anything at all to be gained from holding
a grudge? If someone has hurt you, either recently or long ago, have you
forgiven them and let it go or are you letting it eat you up inside? God
wants us all to be freed of this pain if we still carry it around, free to
live, to love, to embrace the life of joy and abundance, the Kingdom Jesus
knew which exists for us all whosoever we may be, where there is no pain. I
have always found that forgiving takes a lot sometimes, and is often a
difficult process depending on what we are called to forgive, but God will
definitely help us through every step, or carry us, and the end result is a
life free from any of the wounds and scars that we may find ourselves yoked
with when we cannot let go of old pains.
Jesus said that we are not to forgive seven times, but "seventy times
seven". A friend once tried to ask me what that number would come out to,
and I think I told him, "I don't care what it adds up to. To me it means
infinity. You can't limit forgiveness. If you limit it you miss the
point." And so I still believe. But if we all do our best to practice it
and let our doing so be our witness and testimony to our faith, I think we
might see the bringing about of the Kingdom God intended comes a little
closer to us each day.
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Forgiveness : The Key to the Kingdom by John-Roger
by Mary Logue, Robin Lawrie (Illustrator)
by Greg Laurie
Other Writings By John H. Campbell:
Faith Does Not Demand Miracles,
Also In This Issue:
For They Know Not What They Do
Repent, or You're Going to H-E-double-toothpicks
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