Forgive--How Many Times?

Matthew 18:21-22

The Voice (VOICE)

Peter: ²¹ Lord, when someone has sinned against me, how many times ought I forgive him? Once? Twice? As many as seven times?

Jesus: ²² You must forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven.

At one point I had a coworker whom I’ll call Landen. He had the rather obnoxious habit of remembering every real and imagined mistake I had ever made. He would pop into my office unannounced, sit down and start recounting all of my short-comings. He would continue berating me until my heart would be racing furiously with the pent up anger I felt within me. I would argue, fruitlessly, that he was misrepresenting my motives and actual facts. He would often spend an hour or more because he relished making me livid. This would, of course, only add fuel to his vitriol. This went on mercilessly for several years, and I was seriously thinking of dumping the job and finding something else to do.

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During this time I walked to and from work, about a half-hour in each direction. As I walked, my mind replayed over and over again the injustice he was heaping on my head. I could feel my blood pressure rising higher and higher within me. I knew that this was taking a serious toll on my health.

Finally I decided that I had to do something different from what I was doing. I started praying earnestly for Landen, for his health, for his well-being, for his prosperity. I prayed for his soul, for his salvation and for his spiritual walk with God. It took serious effort on my part to seek his welfare. I no longer prayed for an understanding between us.

Things changed dramatically over the next few weeks. The change was my attitude, not Landen’s behavior. Whenever he came in and settled down on a chair in my office and started berating me, I didn’t attempt to apologize or defend myself or set him straight on his misconceptions or outright twisting of the facts. Instead I would laugh and admit that what he was describing was rather unfortunate, stupid, or whatever. The effect was almost magical.

Now I began to sense that this was Landen’s way of talking with everyone. I watched him do it with my colleagues, including the department chair. As our relations, normalized he would stop in and tell me about his conversations with various upper management, and I would realize that he was treating them the same way he had treated me. My blood pressure no longer shot up into the stratosphere. I could talk with him again as a colleague and not as an abuser.

Lord, continue to grant me the wisdom to forgive perceived wrongs and to seriously seek the physical and spiritual well-being of those I encounter on a daily basis.

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[i] from cbsnews.com