The Night God Taught Me How To Forgive

Many years ago. when I was still in school, I had an encounter with God about forgiveness. He and I had been talking a lot about a particular situation with another young lady, and it wasn't going well. This one night, He and I were talking, and He asked me if I'd forgive her. Like usual, I asked Him what He meant.

He explained that the things she had done would get in the way in the future, and would hold us both back. I said sure, I can do that. He showed me this table in my heart, and it looked like an old-fashioned black board with writing on a base of chalk smears. I went to erase it, and suddenly found Him helping me. What I had thought was just a few things written on a dirty chalk board turned out to be layer after layer of things written on top of each other. His hand on mine, the brush removed not just the top layer but all the layers. I felt so clean and fresh inside! Later i learned that that table was the table of my heart, and those writings were a record of all the wrongs she had done. But that came later.

In this encounter, I could suddenly see her in the distance, looking small and meek. I asked Him what was next, what I should do now when I saw her next. He said for me to be kind to her, but to not engage. He told me to pray for her and that He would handle it. Then he reminded me of something that had been happening to me-

In the months since He saved me, He had been teaching me a lot about how to treat people and the right way to be in the world. There had been several times that I had stopped doing something, just to suddenly have several people take me to task harshly for what I had been doing. It was painful, since I had already made the changes, and was no longer doing what they had accused me of. If it had not been for the Lord's hand on me, and His help dealing with it, I could have fallen back into the very thing I was accused of. But instead, the Lord showed me that they just needed time to see the fruit of the change in me, and I needed to pray for them.

So, there I was, just having erased the complete record of wrongs this lady had done to me. And the Lord reminded me of how others had trounced me right after I had made the changes. He showed me that He was working in her, and for me to stand back and watch for His working in her like He had in me. I was to be friendly but not to engage with her, to watch and pray for her while He worked in her like He had in me. I was to watch her diligently for the first signs of change, for the first signs that He had worked in her like He had in me. And at that point, I was to step in and offer her a hand of friendship and be the one to see the change in her and recognize it for the new beginning and good start that it was.

So that's what I did. I kept my distance, watched and prayed. When she made the changes, and she did, I defended her from those who would have trounced her, and I offered her a kind word and some encouragement. We never became close, but we definitely weren't enemies after that.

So today, when people ask me about forgiveness I share this story with them. What about you? Have you ever been given a hard time about a problem that you finally got fixed, or were in the progress of fixing? Have you ever been the one who was hard on someone? Have you ever needed the benefit of the doubt, and for someone to see that you may have changed? Has someone hurt you that you need to forgive in this way? If you'd like to talk about this post, would like someone to pray with you, or would like to talk in depth with a minister about it, we are here for you.