When you are at odds, how do you get even? When we enter the minefield of relational turmoil, revenge is often our first, knee-jerk reaction. How can I get even? You poked my eye; therefore, I will blind you. And so spreads the poison of sin. Interpersonal strife is mutually assured destruction. Is there a better way to deal with sin?
The fall of our first parents separated us from God and from one another. Adam and Eve became gold medalists at the blame game. ‘Who is to blame for my rebellion, failure, and foolishness? Certainly not me. I will pin the blame on someone else.’ Eve blamed the serpent and Adam blamed God for giving him ‘the woman.’ We are great at tearing down relationships but very poor at repairing them.
How can we reconcile our broken relationships? This road less traveled, the path of repentance and forgiveness, is difficult and very humbling. Here is the brief formula. First, when you are wrong, admit it. Second, confess your failure and sincerely turn away from it. Third, go to the wounded person and repent before them. Own the harmful wrongdoing and ask specifically for their forgiveness. Believe it or not, that is the easy part.
Here is the hard part of the formula for reconciliation. When someone has humbled themselves before you and admits their wrong and asks for your forgiveness, you must forgive them. Luke 17:3, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.” Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” And how does God forgive us? Whenever we ask!
While there are consequences even to forgiven sins, forgiveness is a promise not to punish their sin or to harm them with revenge. It is to choose not to bring up their sin against them. That is asking a lot. In granting forgiveness, we absorb the wrong. We take a punch for Jesus. We place the relationship on the road to a fuller reconciliation. Forgiveness seeks to make our enemies our friends. We can only make peace with our enemies.
Another thing: nearly every broken relationship has more than one in the wrong. It takes two to tango. Admit your portion of the damage done even if it is only 2% of the problem. Admit, own, repent, confess, and finally forgive sin. That is the prescription to overcome sin’s destruction of relationships. Now this formula, this process, does not fully heal the relationship, but it puts it on the road to a healthier place.
How did God deal with our sin and the relational separation that it caused? It paid for it from His end. The innocent paid the price that the guilty could not fully pay. Everyone has had a hand in destroying relationships—everyone is part of the problem. But not everyone is part of the solution.Forgive them, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Romans 12:18, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”