Uneasy Forgiveness

(This is actually a few weeks old. It was submitted mid-June for the church newsletter.)
(My computer has been successfully repaired... with minimal cost.)

On the Monday after Annual Conference I opened my email to discover that a reminder had been sent out. This reminder was for the latest edition of the Steeple. It said that we only had a couple of days to submit items. I sat down to write my thoughts for “Pastor Dave’s Notes”. I had my email and Facebook open along with the document I was writing. I was about halfway through when suddenly a note popped up from my AntiVirus program. It told me that some serious security risk had just been blocked. I then lost control of my mouse and my desktop. I immediately shut down. When I went to turn my computer back on, there was nothing. I had been hacked!

My initial reaction was to be extremely angry. I tried in vain several times under various settings to restart my computer, all to no avail. I remember thinking that there must be an especially hot place in Sheol for those who hack computers. Each time I tried to restart and failed I grew more and more irritated. I was at a loss as to what to do. So I did the only thing that I could think of. I went and had a tickle fight with my kids. As I write this, my laptop still is not working. I’m borrowing the church’s. And this bears no resemblance to what I had been writing before I was hacked. But the incident seemed to be a good lead-in to some thoughts on forgiveness.

When Jesus died, he died for computer hackers. I know… hard to believe, huh? But he did.

I heard an interesting definition for forgiveness at Annual Conference. “Forgiveness: giving up all hope for a better past”. My being angry isn’t going to make my laptop work. But my anger will likely help me miss out on other possible solutions. When I forgive the hackers (!) it doesn’t change what they did. But it allows me to find something that I can take away from it. Like this note. It works that way for God as well. God has already forgiven us – it’s called Grace. If God were to have remained angry about all the things we did, he might have missed out on the solution. (Nah, probably not, but you know what I mean). You know the one, the crucifixion. Followed by the other one, the resurrection. God granted us forgiveness – grace – well before you or I had done anything. Long before I was hacked, “Christ died for us while we were still sinners.”

God has already forgiven the people who hacked me. He forgave them almost two thousand years ago. Just like he forgave us almost two thousand years ago. Sin is sin; it’s not measured by degree. With all the nasty stuff I have done and still do, God’s forgiveness and grace is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It’s something that we need to learn to accept, to live in to. And if I can be forgiven, then anyone can be forgiven. If God can forgive me, I need to forgive too.

But is it really that easy? Which is more difficult; forgiving or staying angry? I’m not sure I have the energy or the time to be irked at someone I don’t know. Yeah, forgiveness can be tougher with someone we do know, but it is even more important that we do it then. I have no relationship with the folks who trashed my computer (I hope), so there’s nothing to lose. It’s the ones we who are closest to that we do have something to lose. It calls us to ask what is really important.

It is my sincere hope that my computer can be fixed easily and with minimal cost to me. It is my sincere hope that nothing like this ever happens again. It is my sincere hope that the hackers come to know Jesus. And I truly think I have forgiven them. What they did was wrong. What they did was “evil”. What they did should never have happened. Forgiveness isn’t forgetting or sweeping something under the rug. Forgiveness simply means not hanging onto something that God wants to deal with. Forgiveness is letting it be handled God’s way.