Open Hands · Week 4 · Saturday · HURT

I pray for about the same three things most mornings, and I have for years. A heart that forgives. Integrity solid enough that nobody can reasonably question my motives or my intent. And righteousness, which I know I am not going to get all the way to, and I know that at the moment I am asking for it.

The first one is the one I want to talk about, because out of all four weeks of this series it is the one I am worst at.

And it is not what you would think. Forgiving is not actually my problem. I forgive people. I do not carry it around hot, I am not plotting anything, and if you call me I will pick up and I will help you, because that is also true of me and it is not a performance.

My problem is that I remember. And once the trust goes, it does not come back.

I Thought I Was Fine

You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.’Matthew 5:38 (BSB)

But I tell you not to resist an evil person. If someone slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also;Matthew 5:39 (BSB)

I have read that verse my whole life as being about not hitting back. And since I do not hit back, I have been quietly giving myself credit for it for about thirty years.

That is not what it says. Look at what the man in the sentence is actually being asked to do. He is not being told to refrain from returning the blow. He is being told to stand there and offer the same person the opportunity to hit him again.

It is not about retaliation. It is about exposure. And the next two verses do the same thing from different angles; the one about the cloak, and the one about the second mile, where you carry the pack further than the man who conscripted you had any right to make you carry it.

Not hitting back was never the hard part. Standing there a second time is the hard part.

So the thing I have been giving myself credit for is a thing the passage is not about, and the thing it is about is the exact thing I will not do.

Peter Wants a Number

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother who sins against me? Up to seven times?”Matthew 18:21 (BSB)

I have always found Peter likeable here, and a little bit familiar. He is not being stingy. Seven is generous and he knows it; he is expecting to be told he is being generous.

Jesus answered, “I tell you, not just seven times, but seventy-seven times!Matthew 18:22 (BSB)

And the answer is not a bigger number, it is the end of the counting.

Which lands on me, because I have a number too, and mine is worse than Peter’s. Mine is one. Once somebody has taken advantage of the good I assumed about them, that is it; you are outside the circle, and probably permanently. I will not be unkind to you. I will help you if you need it. But you are not getting back in, and most of the time you will never know there was a circle.

My better half tells me I assume good in people too much, and she is right. What took me a while to see is that those are not two different traits. The reason the door shuts that hard is that it was open that wide. I give people the benefit of the doubt completely, for free, up front, and so there is nothing gradual to fall back to when it turns out I was wrong. It goes straight from all the way open to shut.

Kind and Tenderhearted

Be kind and tenderhearted to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you.Ephesians 4:32 (BSB)

Two words there, not one, and I only noticed that this week.

I can do kind. Kind is behavior, and I can run behavior. Tenderhearted is about what is actually going on in there, and you can absolutely be the first without being the second, and I have been doing exactly that with certain people for years.

Where This Leaves the Series

Four weeks ago I said this series was about receiving steadiness from God instead of manufacturing it yourself, and we have been through striving and anxiety and insecurity to get here.

It is called Open Hands. I picked that. And the honest place to end it is to tell you that one of mine is still shut, tight, around this exact thing, and that I cannot talk myself into opening it by writing a blog post about it.

What I am trying to do is smaller and slower than that. When somebody who is outside the circle comes to mind, I am trying to ask what their world looks like right now, what they might be carrying, what was going on with them when they did the thing. Not to excuse it. Just to stop the story at the version where I am the only person in it with a point of view. That is new for me and I am not good at it yet.

And I will tell you the one honest piece of good news I have, which is that I am getting better. Not fixed. Better. Slower to close it, quicker to notice I have, and more willing than I was a year ago to leave a door on the latch instead of bolted.

Joseph had twenty-odd years between the pit and the room where he forgave them. I would not have guessed that was mercy, but I think it might have been.

Open Hands · Week 4 Complete · The series is complete