"forgive me."

Why is forgiveness so hard?

When someone apologizes to me, I almost always say, "It's ok, it's no big deal." But, it is usually a big deal to me- and sometimes it's an incredibly 'big deal.' By stating this, I say that what they did was ok, but I do not mean it. This is the problem. Forgiving someone does not mean what they did was ok. It means that I forgive the person. I don't hold what they did against them, and I don't expect them to do something for me to make it all better. [Sidenote: great parallel here between this and the issue of God and sin. God totally hates sin, and totally loves the sinner. God doesn't forgive and belittle sin, he wholeheartedly forgives the sinner.

This path leads me to the topic of revenge. So often, I want the person who wronged me to pay for what they did. Sorry, but it's how I feel. It's probably just human nature to want justice. But forgiveness means that I extend love and grace to the person, and that I don't expect or desire or create a situation that will wrong them the way they wronged me. God is the ultimate judge, I don't have to worry about it. He has better understanding of the situation, anyway- I can be pretty biased sometimes.

There is the potential here for a situation like this to be more costly for the forgiver than the one at fault. Taking on the cost of someone else's mistake is a radical behavior - and yet, it is only a glimpse of the mostly costly move of all- Christ's death on the cross, which is totally unrivaled in history.

Most of these thoughts have been drummed up in my head through discussion and meditation on the parable of the Prodigal Son. There's more to this story than what one might typically hear.

This one thing gets me every time: the Father takes the young son back, though he squandered his part of the inheritance. I always sided with the elder brother in thinking that it was unfair that the father took the younger son back without even hearing his story or hearing 'I'm sorry.' Ludicrous. This would not be the reaction in today's world. And this reaction was unheard of in that day. And this shows me just how lost I can be sometimes; it's not about justice, repayment, penance, what ever you call it.

participation.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” -Theodore Roosevelt

Do you ever feel like you're standing on the sidelines of life, waiting for your chance to prove yourself? Waiting for your chance to do something big, something great, something meaningful?

Your life does not become important when you figure out how to do that one, big, great, life-changing thing. The day-to-day decisions you make, things you decide to do, things you decide not to do, matters most. How do you spend your free time? What is your purpose in life? What do you like to work hard for? When was the last time you failed? What did you learn from this? What matters more to you than anything else in the world? Do you fight for that? Do your actions show that you care about it?