Forgiveness - Reflection by Dean Sue

Tuesday was Global Forgiveness day. It is a day set aside to think about making amends with people and to set things right. Forgiveness is not an easy concept or an easy thing to do. Forgiveness cannot be imposed or demanded, neither does it have a time scale. People who have been through awful experiences will grieve in their own time and in their own way.
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I have often admired those people that can say they forgive a person when they have murdered or harmed a family member. For me the act of forgiving takes time. I know from my own life experiences that when I have been hurt by someone it takes me a lot of time and in some cases it can take me years to forgive. You cannot just turn forgiveness on and off.

Jesus talks to us on a number of occasions about forgiveness. In the Gospel of Matthew Peter comes to Jesus and asks how many times he should forgive his neighbour and Jesus replies seventy time seven. Every day we pray the Lord’s Prayer and in that prayer we prayer ‘Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.’

Forgiveness is not one way. As C. S. Lewis once said ‘forgiveness needs to be accepted as well as offered, if it is to be complete.’ We need then to think about how we forgive others who hurt us and also how we accept forgiveness from others.

It is so easy to say sorry, but to be really sorry and to be really forgiven is a journey that is entered into by two three or four parties and can take a life-time. Every day, every week we have the opportunity to seek forgiveness for the things we have done wrong. We have the opportunity in the liturgy of the church to lay before God what we have done wrong and to seek forgiveness.

As Martin Luther King once said: ‘forgiveness is not an occasional act it is a permeant attitude.’

Dean Sue

While you're here:
Why not prepare for next Sunday's worship? Our preparation sheet for adults and for children can be accessed by clicking on the Resources tab of this website: https://www.prayerforliverpool.org/prayer-resources.html.