Forgiveness

Something happened this morning that I believe illustrates God’s plan of forgiveness:  My oldest hit her little brother.  Now, I’m not pointing out this event as if it is something new around here.  But it did strike me to the heart of the matter. 

 Much of the way God tells us to conduct our own homes is meant to be a reflection of the Kingdom of God.  When we fight and harm our brothers and sisters in the human race, we hurt His heart in the same way that it tears me up to hear my children bickering and fighting.  Instead, we are supposed to love each other.

Brothers and sisters fight—both siblings and humans.  We all assume this is normal behavior.  Each one wants what is best for themselves and is willing to take it by force if necessary.  Yet, this is not supposed to be so in the Kingdom of Heaven.  We are each to be looking out for the best interest of others.  It takes a great deal of maturing to get past fighting and learn to make peace.

The real question we should be asking is not “Will they fight?” but “Why.” 

“Honey, why did you hit your brother?”

“I asked him to stop, and he wouldn’t!”  (He did not meet my reasonable expectation of making me feel comfortable.)

“And so, you took it on yourself to provide the consequences for that?”

“YES!” (in a self-justified tone.)

“No, that is not okay.  You do not have the authority to give consequences.”

When that last sentence fell out of my mouth, a light bulb went off:  I am required to forgive my fellow man because I do not have the authority over them to meter out consequences.  

As a citizen of the Kingdom of God, all of my authority, such as it is, is given to me by God.  No more, no less.  God says that the greatest (the one with the highest authority) in the Kingdom of God is the one who is the servant of all (looking out for the best interest of the most people.) [Matt 20: 25-27 is among many examples that could be cited.]  You might say, I have authority to the extent that a have people I care for.  God loves every human.  He delegates authority to us to care for His loved ones only to the extent that we actually care for them.  Those who “laud” their authority over their subjects will pay the consequences for it.  They are following the precedent of the Kingdom of this World, not the Kingdom of Heaven where even the King of all is a servant—the Greatest Servant. [Phil. 2, etc.]  

We seem to have confused the meanings of the words King and Servant.  We assume that as a king everyone must do what we want, when we want, to suit our good pleasure.  Likewise, servants are nothing but lowly garbage meant to fulfill the wishes of their betters.  That is ONLY true in the Kingdom of this World!  

In the Kingdom of God the rulers are just, and kind, and humble.  They love their subjects and do what is best for them—even the hard things.  This is what is meant by being a public servant.  It does not mean that the authority is a slave to the whim of the subject.  

One of the goals is to set the subjects free from being controlled by selfishness and bring them into the freedom of love, joy and peace.  This is a maturing process both for children and citizens of the Kingdom of God.  Then, they themselves will be able to care for the best interest of others and become endowed as governors on God’s behalf.  

Now, I can understand my oldest being a little confused.  You might say that in the Kingdom of our House, she is the greatest of the subjects.  In many ways she has authority over the other children.  She helps me with them every day.  She doesn’t need to be prompted to help but voluntarily sees a problem and jumps right in to find a good solution.  I’m proud of her for the way she lives out her confession of love for her parents.  

Yet, her authority is only in a limited capacity at this level of maturity.  As soon as her goals do not line up with the authority of the household, her authority no longer exists.  That’s because her authority isn’t a blank check to do whatever she wants; it is to care for those under her authority. 

In fact, because I see how willing she is to help, I purposefully dismiss her from her obligations and often do her chores.  I want her to play and have fun sometimes without thinking of responsibility as a chore.  I want her to know she is valuable to me aside from the things she does to help.  I want a relationship with her, not a slave.

However, does this close relationship to the ultimate authority give her the right to mediate consequences to her siblings?  No!  What should she do?   First, she/they should try to work out a good solution among themselves.  Secondly, if they cannot come to an agreement, then they may appeal to me for justice. 

 It is easy as a parent to lump all such appeals into the category of “tattle-tailing.”  Sometimes it is.  However, children must know that they have an authority that will provide justice, or they will seek it for themselves.  Ask my sister; sometimes that will lead to a black eye.  It is a fine line to walk between teaching them to work things out together and when to seek the justice only an authority can provide.  Working things out is always the best option for them; they don’t always like the solution that I provide.

I also think it is important to provide them with the tools they need in order to find those good solutions.  It is impossible for an immature person to come up with a good solution on their own.  We often say, “Just go play nicely,” or “Go work it out on your own,” or simply “I don’t want to hear it; stop fighting or else!”  This dismissal of their reality is confusing for them.  Do they go punch their brother until he submits, or do they seek a higher authority?  We are sending mixed messages.

Instead, we can offer guidelines for appealing to the judge.  This is especially important when playing with friends or when mommy is truly busy.  Appeals are not appropriate in the form of, "Mommy, Mommy, MOMMY!"  (Unless you have to pee, right now!)  Rather, the whole process is done in a respectful manner.  Pitching a fit will not get you what you want no matter how right you are or how badly I want to give it to you.

When we dismiss their appeals for justice lightly, we miss the opportunity to teach justice on a small scale that makes it easier to help them understand the reality of true justice later on.  Sometimes learning justice is simply a matter of learning the world does not revolve around you; sometimes that takes a bigger effort on our part than, "Go play nice."  We need to discern which action is appropriate at the time.

Children don’t naturally have an intuition that tells them what true justice is; they are only thinking about what would make them feel comfortable at the time.  They need to be armed with tools like proper expectations, love, words to use, the ability for introspection, critical thinking, and an understanding of justice. They also need to be provided the opportunity to fail in the safe environment of our home where we can help them pick up the pieces.  This means time for them to work it out without us micro-managing their every interaction with each other, as well as for us to expect only what their maturity can accomplish.

True justice takes introspection, critical thinking, and understanding.  None of these are within the ability of a toddler or small child.  Yet, each fight they are involved in demands justice.  While they are too small to make a decision for themselves, we must model justice for them.  We can do this in the same way that we teach them other abstract nouns like colors and feelings—by repeated example.  We may expect a two to act like a two year old, but we are teaching them to move past that level of maturity into a new one.  It is often hard for children to mature past bickering with each other if they are not taught the tools they need in order to work things out on their own.

In order to model the process of introspection, ask them why they chose to do what they did.  “Why did you hit your brother?”  They usually did not ask themselves this question, but acted immediately out of their unprocessed emotion.   Most often the question is answered, “I don’t know,” or “because he…”  The next question of introspection is: Why does this offend you? 

I was 25 years old before I learned this lesson.  Sad, I know.  I always thought I had an anger issue passed down to me from generations past.  What I learned is I didn’t have the tools to understand what the real problem was.  I didn’t know to exercise introspection to find the root cause of my offense.  I felt emotion; I acted on emotion.  It still happens once in awhile, but less often now that I’ve been trying to practice introspection.  In the past introspection has always come after the explosion.  The answer has been the same enough times now that I can often recognize the problem before acting unruly.  (*This is by no means a claim to perfection in this matter, only progress.)

Once the root cause of offense is found, it can be determined if it is just or not.   This takes a little critical thinking:  “Are you being loving or selfish?” or “Are they breaking the law?”  “Did your verbal offense instigate his physical breech of conduct?”  “Were you negligent?”  Very often the answer is yes—to all of it.  Then the sorting begins.   Who did not meet the expectations of their role and how can it be rectified.

If you ask a child older than five they can usually determine the truth about their motives.  It is usually rooted in selfishness.  "I wanted..." They hate to admit what they have been trying to justify is really them being selfish!  Usually at this point the problem is solved and both parties can withdraw their accusation and come to an agreement on their own.  

Of course first, both parties usually have something to apologize for.  Around here it sounds something like this, "I'm sorry for _________.  I didn't mean to make you feel like garbage. You are not garbage; you are treasure.  And, I'm sorry God for treating your treasure like garbage.  I'm sorry Momma for treating your treasure like garbage; I didn't mean to break your heart."  (You'd be surprised at how the tension melts when the offended one hears that they are not viewed as garbage--even though they know it's part of the expected minimum apology!  The subsequent enthusiasm for finding good solutions together always surprises me.  What a second ago was all out war, ends skipping away together to find something to share.  That's because the true offense was not that you wouldn't do what I wanted, but rather your disrespect of me made me feel like garbage.)

It was a difficult day when I came to the realization about my own explosive reactions—especially toward my small children.  “STOP FIGHTING YOU ARE DRIVING ME NUTS!”  My expectation was selfish.  I expected a 4 year old and a 2 year old to handle their emotions over being discomforted when I was reacting in the same manner over my discomfort.  I have to get a handle on my own expectations and my own motives before I can even begin to confront theirs with any degree of justice.

It has been a long, slow process of learning how to bring about justice in my own home (a process that isn't finished.)  Yet, our home is meant to be a model so that these children can more easily grasp the Kingdom of God.  This morning it struck me that while over the last years I have been attempting to adhere to God’s model, there is even more to it than I’d previously correlated. 

My oldest thought she had a right to hit her brother since he “broke the Law” of our household.  This is exactly the problem we children of God have toward each other.  We look at the way our “brother” has offended and attempt to meter out consequences.  This is not justice; this is vengeance.

Why?  It sounds good?  Retribution is justice, right?  They broke the Law of Love didn’t they?  They deserve consequences.

Well, the problem with my oldest avenging herself against her brother is that she has no authority in our household to give consequences.  If she desires justice in a matter that they cannot work out among themselves, she must appeal to a higher authority, namely a parent.

In the same manner, we as humans must not seek retribution, but seek a higher authority.  In some cases, that  literally includes the powers that be: cops, judges, and juries.  But in most cases, it is simply our Father in Heaven.  

He sees.  He knows the truth about the matter.  He knows their motives.  He knows the outcome.  He knows whether consequences or mercy is the proper response.  He knows if our offense is merely due to our own selfish expectations.  He knows whether to act or not to act.  He knows what action.  He knows to what extent to take the consequences.

That is what forgiveness is.  Releasing my offender from my retribution and putting their offense under the jurisdiction of the One who truly has authority.  It involves releasing the lie that because they made us feel like garbage, this is what we are.  By trusting God to love both my offender and myself, I know that justice will be served.  Forgiveness doesn’t mean that nothing ever happened or that it wasn’t offensive.  It only recognizes that I am a child and my offender is a child.  I cannot hit my brother.  If we cannot work it out amongst ourselves, I must appeal to a higher Authority, namely my Parent, God.

He does not need to do the query that I as a parent need to do in order to get down to the heart of the matter.  He can produce the proper consequences that are needed without it.  However, He would prefer that we work it out amongst ourselves.  He also wants us to learn the process of understanding justice.  Almost every time the Bible records God confronting sin, He does so by taking His subject through the process of introspection.  It starts with questions like, “Adam, where are you?”  Duh, God knew where Adam was; it was a gentle beginning to arriving at the truth of the matter.

My role in resolving the matter is not giving my brother consequences.  Rather, it is making amends where possible, introspection, critical thinking, understanding justice, and trust in my Authority.  I need to handle my part and let my Father handle His.  The difference between my children’s situation and my own is that God is always just; I am learning as I go.