No Strings Attached
Lori had planned a birthday party for her brother. She invited her parents and siblings. Her brother was traveling from another state and would arrive later than everyone else. As Lori and her sister Kelli decorated for the party, they began to argue. The issue was silly in retrospect, but at the time it got heated. As they raised their voices, their father entered the fray, taking the side of Lori's sister.
Through the years, Lori's father had often controlled them with physical punishment. Lori had grown up afraid of his anger. Now that she was an adult living on her own, her father still seemed threatening whenever he got angry and raised his voice. This day he also raised his hand as if to strike her. He didn't touch her, but it didn't matter. As thirty years of pent up resentment welled up inside of her, Lori went into survival mode...
She told her father to get out of her house. She made her point clear with some expletives--something she had never done before. Her father immediately went to his car and told her mother to get their stuff. Her mother shook her head when Lori tried to say how she felt. Her mother was sad, her sister was sad, her father was sad. Lori suddenly realized that her brother would be coming to his birthday party and their parents would be absent. Lori swallowed her pride for the sake of her brother. She went out to the driveway and knelt beside her father's car. Apologizing, she begged him to stay for her brother's sake. There was no response. Her father just stared straight ahead out the windshield. He didn't even acknowledge her words. Her mother got into the car and they drove away. Lori was devastated! Later, when her brother arrived it was a sad party without their parents. Lori did not hear from her parents for four months.
One day she decided to call her dad. She said, "I just wanted you to know I love you!" She could hear her father's emotions on the other end of the line. She knew he loved her. He then said something that she really needed to hear. "I am sorry for every time I yelled at you or hit you." Lori and her father forgave each other. Although Lori and her father were speaking again, this incident had reinforced an image in her mind of her heavenly Father. She often imagined God just staring straight ahead when she apologized for her sins. This lead to her begging and bargaining with God. Then one day Lori heard a preacher say that our heavenly Father is just like Jesus. If this was true, she thought,
God's forgiveness must be identical to the way Jesus forgave people.
She searched through her Bible. Story after story with lame men, lepers, demoniacs, Mary, Peter, the thief on the cross--all experienced God's forgiveness! The truest example of God's forgiveness was while Jesus was dying on the cross. Although He was suffering in agony He prayed for the forgiveness of those who were hurting Him. Jesus could have left immediately, He could have called the angels and gone back to heaven, but instead He cried out to His Father, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do!" Did Jesus ask this because His Father was angry? No, the Bible says "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son." God was not dying to appease God!
The word apheimi that Jesus used here means to remove the guilt from the psyche of the offender. Jesus had no ill feelings toward His murderers, He simply asked His Father to remove the guilt from their psyche. In His darkest hour, Jesus had no self-righteous indignation. He didn't even ask for an apology.
He simply forgave us.
©2008 Cherilyn Christen Clough
www.MyFatherInHeavenIsPerfect.com
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