"The Reason for God"

Tim Keller's latest book is one that we were supposed to read for a portion of our summer reading for PDS last year. Being that I was enrolled in graduate classes for most of the summer, my "summer reading" became "summer skimming". I am currently rereading this book and am really enjoying it.

I was reading the chapter called "The (True) Story of the Cross" and have taken away some really helpful thoughts on God's decision to let Jesus die on the cross and how a perfect, sinless God could have possibly chosen to forgive us through something that seems so cruel!

Here are a few key elements from the book:

"Why couldn't God just forgive us?" they ask. "The Christian God sounds like the vengeful gods of primitive times who needed to be appeased by human sacrifice." Why can't God just accept everyone or at least those who are sorry for their wrongdoings?"
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"Forgiveness means refusing to make them pay for what they did. However, to refrain from lashing out at someone when you want to do so with all your being is agony. It is a form of suffering. You not only suffer the original loss of happiness, reputation, and opportunity, but now you forgo the consolation of inflicting the same on them. You are aborting the debt, taking the cost of it completely on yourself instead of taking it out on the other person. It hurts terribly. Many people would say it feels like a kind of death."

I can honestly say that in the last few years, I have learned that, ONLY through the blood of Christ, am I able to forgive. There was a specific time recently where I felt as though I had been extremely wronged....for a long period of time. Because the sins that were inflicted on me were ongoing and out of manipulation, I didn't know how I could possibly come to a place of forgiveness.

I learned that, for me, the best way for me to attempt this, was to separate the person from the sin and put myself in his/her position. Could I come to a point where I could do such things? Yes. Can my sin get the best of me and lead me down unexpectedly dark paths? Yes. These sorts of thoughts were the best ways for me to think rationally through what had been done and how I could possibly forgive the person, and free myself from the chains of bitterness that could have easily ensued and begun a sin-entangling cycle in my own life.

Forgiveness will continue to be something that I struggle with, as we all do. I take comfort, though, in reading that it should hurt. I shouldn't be able to do it without tons of pain and grief, and God is able to help me forgive anyone for anything.

He is good.