Tit for Tat

It is easy to gloss over that little word “as” in the Lord’s Prayer — “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” But that one little word puts a whole new perspective on things, doesn’t it?

A small child, learning to recite the Lord’s Prayer in Sunday school, said, “Forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who trash our baskets against us.” Cute, funny…but true.

Forgiveness and being forgiven isn’t so much tit for tat as it is cause and effect. Until we can embrace the idea that we also mess up and need forgiveness, we’ll find it hard to forgive others for the mess they made. We remain too smug, too hurt, or too angry. We begin to look inward to our hurt instead of to Christ for our healing.

What Jesus means in the Lord’s Prayer, reflected in Mathew 6:5, is this: when our hearts are hardened as a defense from being wronged, then we block God’s mercy from flowing through us and ministering to us. After a while, our bitterness and sour attitude might even block God Himself out.

Understand this: forgiveness does not mean we condone the offensive behavior. We only refuse to let it block us from God’s love working in our lives and in theirs. So the next time you set your teeth because someone has trashed in your basket, think about whose basket you may have trashed. Open the dam of hurt and anger. Let forgiveness and mercy flow.

Dear Lord, you taught us how to pray and felt it deeply important to include forgiveness in that prayer. Help us to forgive those who have trashed our baskets, knowing that we are human as well and may do the same to someone else. Open our hearts to be merciful so we can be more open to your mercy. Amen.

Go Deeper — Take a few moments today to see if there is someone you have never forgiven. Take that to God and ask Him to help you begin to release the hurt, grudge, or anger you have. Then, take a deep breath and write, call, or text that person and start to reconcile with them.

If you want to read more on this topic and can stomach the delicately worded but necessary abusive scenes essential to the story, consider reading my 2016 Grace Award Finalist novel, Freed to Forgive about a trafficked teen who, after she is freed from her abusers, discovers she is still shackled by anger until she embraces forgiveness from and through Christ.