Receiving Forgiveness from Others
Living as a forgiven child of God, truly free from past sins.
Heart
Earlier we explored the distinction between hard-heartiness and tender-heartedness in the context of forgiving others. Now it makes sense to examine the nature of our heart when receiving forgiveness. What does it look like to be hard of heart to the desires of others to forgive us? What is the condition of our heart when we close ourselves off from others offering of forgiveness?
When it rains we want to have stuff that is waterproof or at least protected by something that is waterproof. Recent advertisements for new smartphones that I have seen point to how weather resistant the latest and greatest iPhone is. Now I am not in the market for a new phone, but as my oldest gets further into his teen years, the question of waterproofing and damage resistance for his phone becomes a bigger issue. My wife and I might manage to avoid damaging our phones, but having worked with teens for a couple of decades, I know the damage that the absent-minded use of a cell phone can cause to its integrity.
Often having a hard shield around something valuable protects it from damage. In the case of the heart, its hardness can be seen as protection, but I would suggest that while it may seem that we are trying to protect ourselves from further hurt, we in fact are solidifying the harm and damage already done and failing to allow the healing gift of forgiveness to work in our lives.
The writer of Hebrews quotes Psalm 95 in Hebrews 3 by stating in verse 8 “do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness”. When we are in rebellion against the will of God, we act contrary to His desires and wishes for us. God created us to be relational beings. We reflect His image in our ability to relate to Him as well as the rest of humanity. Yet, as has been pointed out the relational connection has been damaged by sin.
When sin impacts the heart it breaks down our ability to properly relate to one another and to God. Adam and Eve discovered that they were naked and hid from God and one another after they ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. “Who told you that you were naked?” (Genesis 3:11a) God asked Adam and Eve when they hid from Him rather than joining His as He walked in the Garden. Most of the time we focus on the break between God and our first parents, but there was also a relational break between the two of them. Adam blames Eve and God for his having sinned stating that “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate” (Genesis 3:12). Rather than defending her and keeping her from sin, Adam fails to stand up for her and then when challenged blames her for his own failing.
Eve in turn points to the serpent, but the damage is already done. Neither is open to either admitting their own sin or receiving forgiveness from God. When we resist being open to receiving forgiveness from God, this settles into our hearts and makes us less inclined to receive forgiveness from one another as well. This hard-heartedness seals us off from God's grace as shared through the forgiveness and restoration of our relationships which are those who matter in our lives.
Just as it was mentioned previously how we as parents need to work with our children to encourage their hearts to be tender enough to forgive others, the same holds true for the condition of their hearts related to their being open to being forgiven as well. Depending on the nature of your child, there may be any of a number of things taking place in their hearts. One key issue that may harden their hearts is a belief that they do not deserve forgiveness. They are in a sense hardening their hearts around the sin that they end up protecting from the release of the forgives of others.
Imagine what would have happened had the prodigal son insisted that his father not forgive him. Recall the parable of Jesus recorded in Luke 15. The younger of two sons comes to his father one day and requests his share of the inheritance that he and his brother would one day receive upon his father’s death. Note first of all that in effect, he is wishing for his father’s death or at least the effect of that death on his own personal financial position. He is saying that his father’s wealth means more to him than his relationship with his father.
Having received his share, the son departs and engages in “reckless living.” When the money runs out, as it naturally does, so do the hangers-on who had pretended to be this son’s friends when he was flush with cash. Dejected, broke, and starving, the son realizes that his only hope is to return to his father and beg to be taken back as a hired servant. This son does not believe that he is worthy to ask anything more of his father, and truly he is right.
What he does not know is that his father has been waiting every day for his son’s return. When he finally sees his son on the road, this father does the undignified thing and hitches up his garments to allow him to run down the road to meet his son while he is still on the road. This had to have been a sight. A man of wealth as this man was, would not have run down the road as he did and certainly not to a son who had treated him like his son did. Yet, this is what Jesus stresses took place for the purposes of this parable.
Before the son is able, to begin with, his rehearsed apology speech, his father is already hugging and kissing him, he is already offering forgiveness and a full restoration of their relationship as father and son. In the original parable, the father throws a party for his son, much to the older son’s frustration, but what if the younger son, would have resisted his father’s forgiveness? What if, knowing full well how sinful his behavior and treatment of his father was, the son was not willing to be taken back and insisted that no party be thrown and that he only be taken back as a hired hand?
Likely his father would have been heartbroken. What was most important to the father was his son. Regardless of how the son had treated him. When we or our children harden our hearts and resist being forgiven we prevent the restoration of the right relationship that we can have with one another. There may be times when our children resist. If they have a sense of their own sin, they might get temporarily stuck with a self-inflicted message of their own “badness” in their hearts, hardening them to being forgiven. Take the time to patiently speak words of forgiveness to them. Share appropriate times when you sinned and were forgiven. Give them time to emotionally move from guilt to a point of receptiveness of forgiveness. Sometimes just being a quiet loving presence will be enough to soften their hearts.
This may be a difficult and heartbreaking time depending on our own emotional states. For those of us parents who are less comfortable with conflict, the lack of reconciliation may be difficult, but we cannot rush through this. We need to allow our children to soften their hearts at their own pace so that they are able to receive forgiveness and experience the joy of a restored relationship with us or others in their family or friend group.
