Forgive 77 Times

I think one of the hardest -- yet most beautiful -- teachings in the Bible is the one about forgiveness. In Matthew 18:21, Peter asks Jesus, "Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Essentially, Peter wants to know when enough is enough. When do you give up on a friendship? When are you hurt so many times that it's ok to just call it quits? When you can't take it anymore?

Sometimes I find myself fighting so hard against this teaching, because it goes against everything in me. It is natural for most of us, after they are continually hurt, continually sinned against, and let down time and time again, to say they are through with it. Done with the relationship, the job, the person. It's natural for me to justify those thoughts, saying that I don't deserve that, I don't deserve that treatment; in fact, I actually deserve much better.

But the answer that Jesus gives to Peter surprises me. He tells him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy seven times." Are you kidding me? 77 times? I have to forgive someone so much for hurting me that I won't even remember the number of times I've forgiven them? This is so hard when everything in me wants to give up, to stop fighting for a friendship or for a person.

I think so highly of myself that I can trick myself into thinking that I don't do the exact same thing to everyone around me. I let people down. I don't love them. And I'm not the friend or daughter or sister to others that I demand them to be to me. That is the beauty in this teaching. While my pride gets in the way so much of the time, I have been forgiven for so much. I've been forgiven not only once for all, but millions more than seventy seven times. I know that the Lord has not called it quits on me and never will--he doesn't even think it--and that gives me so much hope for myself. I have hope not only that I will be and have been forgiven, but that because I have been forgiven, I can show this same love to others. Even when my heart feels as though it will shatter into billions of tiny sharp pieces because of the pain, I have to believe that I don't truly deserve to be forgiven myself. I have to forgive despite pain. And that is such a hard concept to wrap my mind around.