You got to forgive… so often so true as holding on to a grievance is not smart, and as is said bitterness is to drink of the poison one wants someone else to be drinking. But been thinking a bit lately – always dangerous I know!
I have been looking at the three big words that are used to describe the catch-all word ‘sin’ and the one I have focused on is ‘trespass’. Crossing boundaries, overstepping a line – that kind of meaning. Immediately after Matthew’s account of the disciples’ prayer he records Jesus as saying,
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matt.6;14,15).
How do we trespass? There are the obvious ways – crossing a boundary that we should not… the ‘original’ sin is described by Paul in Rom. 8 as a trespass (paraptoma). Our ancestors crossed a boundary, ‘do not eat from the one forbidden tree’ – a critique of global history in that prohibition. We cross boundaries every time we seek to control / manipulate someone else, and there are many warnings in Scripture about moving boundary markers.
And the non-obvious ways, when we are being ever so good and our ‘kindness’ and ‘love’, so wanting the best for someone (cos we really know what is the best for them) we simply go too far. Paul said live at peace (and being a Jew he is thinking ‘shalom’) with all as far as is possible – sometimes the other party draws a line, with a ‘so far but no further’. To go beyond the line they draw – maybe that is a trespass?
I came back the other day to say to Gayle that I am challenged about a situation I am praying into, in that maybe I should stop praying about it and simply trust God that s/he is right in there and does not need any prayers that simply help settle any anxieties I have. Maybe to be prayerful I need to pray less about it. So easy to cross boundaries without realising it.
Forgive us our trespasses. Forgiveness. I like one of the uses of the word ‘forgive’. It was used in ancient Greek of the release of a boat to its journey. How about applying that to situations. Untie the situation / person and release them (thank God that s/he travels with them – after all s/he left the ‘garden’ with our ancestors). We can hold on too tight, not always to a wrong done to us, but to the ‘I am so important and vital and know what is best’ scenario.
Living a godly life seems not to be so much about being good as being made well.