Forgiveness (Bot9 #201)

The final member of the Starting 9's infield occupies the "hot corner" - the third baseman. The "hot corner" is appropriate as difficult interpersonal relationships can often stir up the most feeling and emotion. Because of this stereotype, Forgiveness is the Starting 9's third baseman.

Most of the recent writing I've done on Forgiveness has dealt with interpersonal relationships. I've focused on maintaining short accounts, healing old wounds, and things that pop up in the messiness of doing life with people.

As I prepared to write this week, my focus was drawn to the Forgiveness I needed to seek from God. John Eldredge's daily email was simply called "A Question" and here is what it said:

Let me pause at this point and ask you a question: What are you repenting of? I mean, right now, this week, what is it that you are repenting of these days?

If you don’t have a ready answer, how can you be taking holiness seriously?

If your answer focuses on something external, what about the matters of the heart behind it?

It’s worth a pause.

It was one of the simplest and most powerful pieces I've read recently. Sometimes when we're looking at forgiveness, we focus on seeking to forgive others or even finding someone from whom we need to ask forgiveness. But, as relationships go, we should probably look to God more often to forgive the plank in our own eye.

At the end of Colossians, Paul asks those reading his letter to "remember my imprisonment." May we take a moment to seek first God's forgiveness, repent from our sin, and then seek forgiveness from one another. Maintaining our vertical relationship first will allow greater health in our horizontal relationships.