Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. | Colossians 3:12–13
Every week, I have the opportunity to sit in God’s Word as I prepare to deliver it to the church. While there are constantly things that I learn along the way, there are times when I come across a truth that creates a paradigm shift for me. The ones that really affect me are not the obscure, hidden realities, but the ideas that are pronounced that I have simply missed. I had one of these hit me last week: forgiveness is an act of patience.
To me, forgiveness has always been tied more to mercy. To forgive someone is to give someone compassion by releasing them from their deserved consequence. This isn’t wrong. Forgiveness is mercy and compassion. When the weight is on my ability to let go of an offense, I need help to conjure it up. Where do I get this power to let go?
The answer to this has always been: look at how you have been forgiven. The Bible tells us that the power to forgive others comes from our understanding of the grace that we have been shown. Forgiveness is a response to our salvation. There parable of the unmerciful servant is a powerful example of this, showing the result of not forgiving:
Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. | Matthew 18:32–35
What we see here is that forgiveness is not just an option – it is the proof that we understand all that we have been forgiven of. This should be enough. In the flesh, we still deal with a desire to see justice done. Sometimes this makes forgiveness seem like enabling. So we justify holding back forgiveness for the sake of righteousness; to take sin seriously means wanting to see it dealt with.
This is where patience comes in. To trust in God’s righteous judgment means that we can let go of ‘need’ to see justice done now — while still believing that it should be done. We can still hate sin and do everything we can to push back against it, but when we can’t push any further, we can leave it in God’s hands. When we see the limits of justice in this broken world, our response should be to trust the divine Judge. The alternative is letting the offense of sin corrupt you into becoming unjust yourself or falling into despair. If justice is up to us, we will either force it, or feel like it will never happen.
Patience gives us another vision. It is not to produce forgiveness from within. To be patient means that we keep going in the same direction. We keep praying: your kingdom, come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, as we wait for the day when God’s justice will reign down. Being sure of this future moment makes it possible for us to patiently wait in this imperfect world. It also gives us the ability to forgive.
Maybe this isn’t as much as a help to you; I found that it helped me to get rid of one more justification to not truly forgive as I have been forgiven. I am thankful that God’s Word continues to expand and build my understanding week in and week out, and to give me more reasons to put my trust fully in Him.