No doubt you have seen the shocking video of a policeman killing Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina, on April 4th by shooting him several times in the back. The evidence seems clear that this was a heartless act of violence on the part of the officer. The policeman was promptly arrested and charged with murder.
What you may not have seen is the response that Walter’s mother, Judy Scott, made when CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked her how she felt about a white cop killing her son, an unarmed black man. You can see the whole interview here: http://goo.gl/h1SIWo.
Mr. Cooper began the interview by asking Judy Scott how she was holding up. “The Lord is my strength. He is helping me to hold out.” She explained that she was able to hold out through “knowing God as my personal Savior.”
Toward the end of the interview, Walter’s mother said something else that is truly amazing: “I’m supposed to be really angry and upset and raging and all that, but I can’t. Because of the love of God in me, I can’t be like that, I feel forgiveness in my heart, even for the guy that shot and killed my son.”
Judy Scott said she wants justice for her son, but that she also has forgiveness for her son’s killer. Wow! Think for a minute of all the benefits that Judy Scott’s forgiveness will bring to her. Besides the fact that if she were angry and wanted revenge, it wouldn’t make anything better, there are a whole host of other benefits that will come to her along with her forgiving spirit.
This is what the researchers at the world-famous Mayo Clinic have concluded.
If you’re unforgiving, you might:
- Bring anger and bitterness into every relationship and new experience
- Become so wrapped up in the wrong that you can’t enjoy the present
- Become depressed or anxious
- Feel that your life lacks meaning or purpose, or that you’re at odds with your spiritual beliefs
- Lose valuable and enriching connectedness with others [See http://goo.gl/BeYyN5]
We have all been hurt by others, but the ability to forgive the way Judy Scott has forgiven seems almost impossible. After all, what could be worse than watching your son get gunned down? If nothing else, her attitude proves that there is hope for us.
Maybe you are struggling with forgiving someone close to you because they hurt you deeply. It could be a spouse, child, co-worker, friend, or neighbor. You know all the details of that deep hurt, but in spite of the pain, it is possible for you to release that injury. You can experience peacefulness in the midst of the wound you are carrying, and Judy Scott proves it. The key is, as she put it, “knowing God as my personal Savior.”
Jesus explained the key to forgiveness with a story.
One day Jesus told His followers that there was no limit to how often they should forgive someone else. They were understandably shocked, so this is how He illustrated that truth. Jesus told about a man who was millions of dollars in debt to his employer. Because of the laws in those days, he should have been cast into prison, but his boss decided to cancel the entire debt. Later, that same man found a fellow employee who owed him a small amount of money. He demanded that this employee pay up, but the other man was broke and begged for mercy. Instead of forgiving his small debt, though, the first man got angry and had his fellow employee arrested.
When the boss heard about this man’s unwillingness to forgive, he found him and said, “‘you wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’ And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:32–35).
Christians are able to forgive others because they understand that they have been forgiven themselves. They know that they have been forgiven for every sin they committed, both small and large, against a high and holy God. Understanding that changes everything.
When another person sins against a Christian, he should remember the awful price that Jesus paid so God could forgive all of his or her own many, many sins. That is why Christians are commanded to be “bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you” (Colossians 3:13).
I owed God an insurmountable debt, the payment for all of my own many sins, but when I repented of my sin and put my faith in Christ, I was forgiven. Hallelujah! Now I know that there is nothing greater than having my sin debt completely paid. Jesus paid it all! We don’t have to live our lives angry and depressed. “… by nature [we are all] children of wrath…. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:3–5).
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