Published March, 1999
As American citizens, trying to resolve the problems surrounding President Clinton’s behavior, we have set a new tone of forgiveness for the near future. Forgive me has become a social mantra demanded to cover public wrongdoing.
He who sees the sin has become the sinner. He who demands correction is guilty of hypocrisy. Worse yet, he is labeled a villain who won’t forgive.
Who doesn’t need forgiveness? I know I do. Upon the death of my mother, I found the letter of apology I wrote her. In my thirties, with the wisdom of age and motherhood behind me, I wrote her asking forgiveness for my many inconsiderate acts during my college years. Highest on the list is the late evening/early morning, at 2:00 a.m., when I told her I didn’t need to come in earlier. “Don’t wait up. Either I come home, or the police will call you.” The simple ‘logic’ of a college student crushed the heart of my mother. My life is filled with acts that require me to ask forgiveness.
I must also give forgiveness. As a parent who often finds my child “with his hand in the cookie jar,” I and other parents have learned from experience. Our children will appreciate our quick understanding and “forgiveness.” But understanding and forgiveness given quickly and without discipline usually fails to change a child’s behavior. Cookies are much too tempting.
After decades of permissive parenting, child psychologists are returning to the common wisdom of our parents: spare the rod, spoil the child. Counselors of the 90’s tell us, “Love the child, but not the behavior.”
‘Consequences’ is the modern buzzword; enforce natural consequences with consistency and love. Love continues in the midst of discipline. A child’s tears may grab at our heart, but we stay the course.
I only have to consider my own life to know the power of this truth. My greatest learning has come from the pain of great mistakes. I’ve lost a good friend with one word of gossip thoughtlessly passed. I’ve spent years rebuilding trust after a single broken promise. I’ve struggled to buy groceries because I splurged to buy a fancy car. Life disciplines.
As parents, our ultimate goal, of course, extends even beyond keeping the cookies in the jar. We hope to teach repentance and forgiveness. Again, it’s easier said than done. We’ve all probably once directed a child, “Now say you’re sorry.” If your experience was like mine, you know the hollow victory of a child’s sullen, insincere, “Sorry.” His words are a shell around the empty heart that isn’t sorry at all. The child simply wants to go back out and play.
Like my children, I’ve been able to escape repentance many times, easily forgiven. I know my husband will forgive the curt words and sour looks I use to “pay him back.” He loves me. But in the early morning hours, with only God to impress, I know how reprehensible my actions are. My own repentance is not measured by my husband’s gentle and loving spirit. I know my duty under God’s firm command. For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (Heb 4:12)
Cheap repentance is the result of cheap forgiveness. With loving discipline, we parents hope the feelings of repentance will grow into our children’s hearts. In the meantime, our check and balance for rearing our children is consistent discipline.
This discipline is the bold stripe that must be woven into our social fabric. America’s criminal system has tried to undo the harm of cruel punishment unchecked and without balance. Years of legal precedence and finely tuned laws seek to strike a balance between compassion and punishment.
Our nation benefits greatly from the Constitution’s system of checks and balances. This concept brings wisdom to complicated matters. If we were to look at forgiveness with divine wisdom, we might see the beautiful checks and balances given by the hand of God.
God, the only perfect reader of human hearts, has given all people the checks and balances of His Word, The Bible. He knows we seek forgiveness. We would just as soon “go out and play.” He loves us, but he knew better than to let us have our own way without Ten Commandments. God’s Word teaches us to love the sinner, but to hate the sin.
Forgiveness is our heart’s desire. But it sits on the far end of a teeter totter that struggles to achieve balance. Americans, as we become a public jury to public crimes through the power of the media, must be ever vigilant to guard our social conscience against cheap forgiveness.
Are we asking prosecutors, instead of proving a crime with evidence, to prove they are themselves forgiving people? Do we want juries, instead of deciding guilt or innocence, to demonstrate their own understanding and forgiveness?
Social commentators during the President’s trial have capitalized on our natural desire to avoid concepts of sin and discipline and, instead, to prove our compassion. In a secular society, we are treated to healthy doses of carefully selected scripture from a Bible that otherwise lies untouched and unread by many. Some would have us believe we are never to judge and never to cast the tiniest stone.
The good news is that The Bible is a perfect place to turn for wisdom. It is God’s delicate system of checks and balances. God has much to say to us, if we only value Him enough to read and listen. While He teaches the power of forgiveness, He gives serious counsel to parents, kings, and priests on the dangers of being consumed by sinful thought and action. Cheap forgiveness is not God’s way.
Unchecked and unbalanced, the moral fabric of our country is in danger of being measured by the victim’s ability to forgive instead of the citizen’s ability to behave within the law. A cloak of moral integrity is not made with one thread, forgiveness. It is woven of many threads. The Bible speaks this truth. It weaves a strong fabric of truth and integrity over centuries of human history.
God intended us to live with compassion toward one another, but he offered the balancing command: “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” (Mat 19:17)