"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.