What Forgiveness Is Not

Many people hear the word forgive and brace themselves, because they have been told it means pretending. Day 4 draws the lines. Forgiveness does not approve, does not forget, does not remove consequences, and does not hand back trust at once.

Romans 12:17-21; Genesis 50:15-21; Luke 17:3-4; Leviticus 19:17-18; Matthew 18:15-17; Romans 13:4

Opening

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Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Carefully consider what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone. Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written: “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord.” On the contrary, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:17-21 (BSB)

Paul writes to Christians in Rome who live among people who wrong them. He tells them what to do with the wrong, and he is not naive about it.

What Paul Asks, and What He Does Not

Paul does not tell the Romans that nothing happened to them. He assumes that evil has been done. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, he says, and he calls it evil.

Then he gives a measure. If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone. The words if it is possible and on your part matter. Peace takes two people, and you are only responsible for your side. Some of the peace is not yours to make.

Then he hands the wrong to someone else. Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for God’s wrath. The wrong is placed in the hands of the one who can judge it rightly.

The week has said what forgiveness is, and today says what it is not. A person can be afraid that to forgive is to stop caring that it happened. It is not. And if someone is hurting you now, safety comes before forgiveness. In the United States, call 911 in danger, or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1 800 799 7233, or text START to 88788.

REFLECT

Do this today: write the title What I am not saying. Under it, finish this sentence five times: When I release this debt, I am not saying that. Use the five lines to name what you are not agreeing to: that it was fine, that it did not hurt, that you will forget, that nothing will follow from it, that you will trust them again.

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

A Short Prayer

Lord, You see what was done, and You do not call it small. Help me hand it to You without pretending it never happened. Show me what is mine to do, and keep me from doing what is only Yours. Amen.

IN YOUR OWN WORDS

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

Five Things Forgiveness Is Not

Many people have been hurt a second time by the word forgive. Someone used it to end a conversation or to excuse a wrong. So this day says plainly what the week does not mean.

Forgiveness is not approval. When the Bible talks about forgiving, it never calls the wrong good. Romans 12:17 and 12:21 both name it as evil. C. S. Lewis, writing in the Second World War, saw the confusion. “For a good many people imagine that forgiving your enemies means making out that they are really not such bad fellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are.” You can release a debt and still say it was a debt.

Forgiveness is not pretending it did not hurt. Joseph tells his brothers to their faces, I am Joseph, your brother, the one you sold into Egypt. He names what they did. A person who forgives does not need to shrink the injury to make forgiving easy. The size of the debt is part of what makes it a gift.

Forgiveness is not forgetting. When the prophets say God remembers sins no more, they mean He will not act on them. They do not mean He loses the memory. A person who has been hurt usually remembers, and usually should. A memory can be kept without being used as a weapon.

Forgiveness is not the removal of consequences. A forgiven man can still owe a court, a spouse or a boss something. Lewis took up the question of punishment. He wrote that loving your enemy does not mean never punishing him, since loving yourself does not mean you should never be punished. Luke 17:3 says, If your brother sins, rebuke him. A rebuke is a consequence.

Forgiveness is not trust. It can be given by one person alone, and it can take as long as it takes. Trust is built over time by evidence, and it takes two. If someone has been unfaithful with money, a boss may forgive him and still not hand him the books. That is wisdom.

A very large wooden balance with two empty pans hangs from a frame on a hill at sunrise. Far to the left a tiny man walks away across the fields, seen from behind. — Romans 12:19: leave room for God’s wrath. The scales hang empty on a hill, and the wronged man walks away from them.

To release a debt is to say that it was real.

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph bears a grudge? Then he will surely repay us for all the evil that we did to him.” So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Before he died, your father commanded, ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I beg you, please forgive the transgression and sin of your brothers, for they did you wrong.’ So now, Joseph, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” When their message came to him, Joseph wept. His brothers also came to him, bowed down before him, and said, “We are your slaves!” But Joseph replied, “Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God? As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this—to preserve the lives of many people. Therefore do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones.” So Joseph reassured his brothers and spoke kindly to them.

Genesis 50:15-21 (BSB)

Jacob has died. Joseph’s brothers, who once sold him as a slave, are afraid that he has been waiting for this moment. They send him a message.

A man in white linen and a broad beaded collar sits on a carved chair in a sunlit palace courtyard, seen from behind. Across the pale paving a long row of men in striped robes lie bowed on their faces, and the last of them has lifted his head. — Genesis 50:18-21: his brothers also came to him and bowed down before him. He reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

What Joseph Did With His Brothers

Joseph’s story is one of the Bible’s fullest pictures of facing someone who did real harm. His older brothers sold him to traders, and he spent years as a slave and a prisoner in Egypt. When they come to Egypt in a famine, he is the second man in the land, and they do not know him.

He does not reveal himself on the spot. The Hebrew shows a test. This is how you will be tested, he tells them in Genesis 42:15, and he holds one brother in prison until they bring the youngest. The text does not say why he did it, and readers have read his motive in different ways.

The answer comes from Judah, who once proposed selling Joseph. Now he stands up and offers to stay as a slave in place of the youngest brother, so that his father does not have to see the boy lost. Please let your servant stay here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy. Joseph weeps, and tells them who he is.

He names the harm. I am Joseph, your brother, he says, the one you sold into Egypt. Then he says the thing that makes the rest possible. It was to save lives that God sent me before you. Genesis 45:15 says only that his brothers talked with him afterward. The story shows a sequence: a test, an offer, tears, talk.

Years later their father dies, and the old fear returns. What if Joseph bears a grudge? They send a message, and they use the Hebrew verb nasa, to lift and carry away: please forgive the transgression and sin of your brothers. Joseph weeps again. Then comes his answer. Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God?

The question is a disclaimer. Joseph says he is not the judge. He has more right than most to sit in the judge’s chair, and he declines it. He does not pretend the wrong was empty. As for you, he says, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good.

The Hebrew uses one verb twice. You planned evil against me, and God planned it for good. The verb is chashav. Joseph does not erase what the brothers did, and the text keeps it. They planned evil. He also says what God did with it, and he provides for them. The Hebrew says he spoke to their hearts.

This is Joseph’s verdict on his own story, said after many years. It is not a sentence to say to someone else about their pain.

The open mouth of a coarse sack full of grain, with a small silver cup with one handle half buried in it. A knotted cord lies across the rim of the sack. — Genesis 44:2 and 44:12: the silver cup in the youngest brother’s sack. Joseph put his brothers to a test, and the text does not say why.

Where Justice Goes

Paul’s command to leave room for God’s wrath draws on Deuteronomy 32:35, Vengeance is Mine; I will repay. His wording matches neither the Hebrew nor the Greek translation word for word, and it is nearer to the old Aramaic paraphrases. The sense is plain. The right to repay belongs to God.

Proverbs says it too. Do not say, I will avenge this evil! Wait on the LORD, and He will save you. Wisdom is as blunt as Paul. The one who has been wronged is told not to take the matter into his own hands, and to wait on the LORD. Waiting on the LORD does not mean waiting in the same house as someone who is hurting you.

This can sound like a rule for the weak, and it is a gift. A person who believes that God will deal with the wrong does not have to carry the whole weight of making it right. You are not the judge. Joseph’s question comes to every hurt person: Am I in the place of God?

It does not tell anyone to refuse a court. In the very next chapter Paul says a ruler is God’s servant, an agent of retribution to the wrongdoer, who does not carry the sword in vain. Calling the police, going to court, reporting a boss, telling someone who can protect you: none of these has to be vengeance. They are the ways a community answers a wrong, and Paul calls the ruler God’s servant, and no rival of his.

Vengeance is a person deciding that someone must suffer, and carrying it out. Justice is a wrong being answered by an authority that can hold both sides to account. Forgiveness hands the first to God, and it leaves the second where it belongs.

Paul then says something unexpected. If your enemy is hungry, feed him. He takes it from Proverbs 25:21 and 25:22. The picture of burning coals on the enemy’s head has been read as shame, as a stirred conscience, and as a sign of judgment, and scholars do not agree. Whatever it means, the command is to do good and not to repay. It is not a command to go and live with him.

And the last line of the passage is Paul’s summary. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. A grudge held for years can be a way of being overcome, because what was done to you keeps running your days.

Reconciliation – Timothy Keller [Sermon] — A thirty-nine-minute sermon on Genesis 50. Tim Keller reads Joseph’s answer to his brothers, quotes Romans 12:19 a little before the halfway point, and separates forgiving from the slow work of rebuilding trust. A good watch for this day.Gospel in Life

Two Acts, Not One

Luke gives a sentence that surprises people who expect forgiveness to be unconditional. If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to say, I repent, you must forgive him.

Put it beside Matthew 18. Matthew has Peter ask about forgiving without a count and does not add a condition. Luke puts repentance in. Matthew 18:15 has a procedure for the person who will not listen. Leviticus 19:17 has it too. You must not harbor hatred against your brother in your heart. Directly rebuke your neighbor, so that you will not incur guilt on account of him.

The texts do not settle how rebuke, repentance and unlimited forgiveness fit together, and teachers have read them in different ways. One long-standing way follows John Calvin, who said there are two ways of forgiving. In the first, a person lays aside the desire for revenge and does not stop loving the one who hurt him. This forgiveness does not wait for an apology. In the second, a brother is received back into favor, and that follows when he sincerely repents. Augustine, in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, taught that every sin against us is to be forgiven, if we want ours to be forgiven.

Put simply, that way of reading says that releasing the debt is something one person can do alone. Restoring the relationship needs two. Repentance changes what the second can be. A person who has not repented, and is not safe, may be forgiven and never trusted.

Joseph’s story shows a sequence. He named the harm, put his brothers to a test, saw Judah offer himself in Benjamin’s place, wept, and spoke kindly. Later he reassured them again, provided for them, and spoke to their hearts. The text does not say what he felt in the years between, and it does not turn his story into a rule.

Some people cannot safely be near the person who hurt them, and nothing in Scripture says they must be. Proverbs 22:3 says the prudent see danger and take cover. If you are being hurt now, the first step is to be safe.

If you are in immediate danger, call 911. In the United States, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is open at any hour at 1 800 799 7233, and you can text START to 88788. If you are thinking of ending your life, call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Five Years to the Visiting Room

In January 1995 a boy of fourteen named Tony Hicks shot and killed Tariq Khamisa, a twenty-year-old student who was delivering a pizza in San Diego.

Hicks was charged as an adult. He pleaded guilty and went to prison. Tariq’s father, Azim Khamisa, was left with a grief he had no way to put down.

Over the years he began to see, as he put it, victims on both sides of the gun. It still took him five years to act. “It took me five years to develop enough courage to come and meet you,” he later told Hicks.

They met in the prison visiting room in 2000. “We locked eyes for a long time. It was painful.” Azim says he told Hicks then that he had forgiven him.

Hicks remembers it too. “Your forgiveness was heavy on me,” he said later. “I didn’t feel like I was deserving because I knew what I had taken away from you.”

The sentence stood. Hicks served most of it in maximum-security prisons and was released in 2019. The two men have been in touch since.

This story shows a wrong that was named and a sentence that stood. Azim Khamisa went to the visiting room five years after his son was killed. Other parents never go, and nothing in this week says they should. The man who killed his son was in prison, so no one was asked to stay near someone still dangerous. The story is not a pattern for a person who is still being hurt.

Leave It With the Judge

John Calvin wrote on Romans 12:19 in the 1500s. He said what it means to leave room for wrath. “To give place to wrath, is to commit to the Lord the right of judging, which they take away from him who attempt revenge.”

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Calvin’s words are from his commentary on Romans, translated in the 1800s.

Where This Sits in the Story

ANCIENT TRUTH

Joseph’s story sits near the end of Genesis, in the PROMISE stretch, where a family is saved by the brother they harmed. Paul writes in the CHURCH, to Christians who live among people who do them wrong.

Releasing the debt is a decision that belongs to you alone, and it can take as long as it takes. Trust, contact and the shape of the relationship follow what the other person does.

MODERN APPLICATION

We are asked to forgive in a world where wrongs have consequences and where some people stay dangerous. The Bible knows this, and does not ask us to be naive.

NEW TESTAMENT ECHO

Luke 17:3-4 puts rebuke and repentance beside forgiveness. Matthew 18:15-17 gives the steps for a brother who will not listen. Romans 13:4 says authorities bear the sword for a reason.

REFLECT

Which of the five things forgiveness is not have you been afraid it was?

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

Has someone used the word forgive to make you quiet? What did it cost you?
Where would it help to separate releasing the debt from restoring the relationship?
Is there someone you need to be safe from, or a person you should tell today?

A Practice for Today

Romans 12:18 sets the limits of what is yours to do. This practice takes about ten minutes. You will learn the verse so that you have it when the old anger comes back.

Read it

Read aloud: If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone.

Split it

Say it in three pieces. If it is possible. On your part. Live at peace with everyone.

Walk it

Say it once for each step as you walk across a room. Say the second piece a little more slowly.

Cover it

Cover the page and say the verse from memory. If you lose it, look and start again.

Tie it

Pick one moment of tomorrow when the hurt is likely to return. Decide you will say the verse then.

What Is Still Yours to Do

Two short lists close the day. There is what is yours to do, and there is what is not.

Yours: to say the truth about what happened, and to say it where it can be heard. To release the debt in your own heart, as far as you are able. To keep yourself safe. To let trust follow evidence. To refuse to be overcome by evil.

Not yours: to make the other person sorry. To decide how God will deal with them. To force a reconciliation that needs two. To pretend you are not hurt.

You will notice that most of the first list is quiet work. It does not make a scene. Most of the second list is the work we tend to attempt, and it wears us out.

Tomorrow the week closes with a prayer. It is the one Jesus gave his followers, and it has the same two debts in it. We will see why it is a daily prayer, and not a once-only act.

Prayer

Father, You know what was done to me, and You do not look away from it. Help me not to call the wrong right, and not to build my life on collecting it. Show me what is mine to do, and what is Yours. Where I need to be safe, give me the courage to say so and to ask for help. Where I can release a debt, give me the strength. Where trust has to wait, let me wait without bitterness. I leave the judging to You. Amen.

BREATH PRAYER

Inhale: I leave it with You — Exhale: and I do what is mine

IN YOUR OWN WORDS

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

Today’s Commitment

I will tell the truth about what happened, keep myself safe, and leave the judging to God.

LEAVING AT THE CROSS

The fear that forgiving means pretending
The job of being judge over someone who hurt me

RECEIVING FROM THE CROSS

A God who calls the wrong wrong and still forgives
Permission to be careful and to be slow

Check Yourself

According to this day, which of these is something forgiveness does NOT require?

The Brother Who Was Sold

Joseph

the patriarchs, in Canaan and Egypt

Joseph was the eleventh of Jacob’s twelve sons. His brothers sold him as a slave, and he rose in Egypt to be second only to Pharaoh. When famine brought his brothers to him, he tested them, wept, spared them and provided for them.

Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God?

— Joseph

LESSON FOR US

He named the harm and refused vengeance. He tested the brothers, and then he cared for them. The story gives a pattern and does not give a rule for every case.

REFLECT

One Question to Carry

What is forgiveness not asking of you?

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

Sources & Further Study

RELATED SCRIPTURES

Romans 12:9-21

Love must be sincere. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 13:3-4

He does not carry the sword in vain.

Deuteronomy 32:35

Vengeance is Mine.

Proverbs 20:22

Wait on the LORD, and He will save you.

Proverbs 22:3

The prudent see danger and take cover.

Genesis 42:15-16

This is how you will be tested.

Genesis 44:33-34

Let your servant stay here in place of the boy.

Genesis 45:3-5

I am Joseph, your brother, the one you sold into Egypt.

Genesis 50:15-21

Am I in the place of God?

Luke 17:3-4

Rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.

Matthew 18:15-17

Go and confront him privately.

Leviticus 19:17-18

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge.

FOR DEEPER STUDY

Greek: ekdikesis (ἐκδίκησις, G1557), vengeance, Romans 12:19; the Greek Old Testament of Genesis 4:24 has the verb ekdedikētai (ἐκδεδίκηται), has been avenged, from the same root. Dote topon (δότε τόπον), give place. Eireneuo (εἰρηνεύω), Romans 12:18. Luke 17:3 has epitimeson (ἐπιτίμησον), rebuke, and metanoese (μετανοήσῃ), repents; Matthew 18:15 uses a different word for rebuke, elenxon (ἔλεγξον). The text does not settle how these fit; the two kinds of forgiving are named by Calvin; Augustine is cited for the duty to forgive every sin against us. We have attributed the separation to Calvin and not to Jesus. Hebrew: chashav (חָשַׁב, H2803) is used of the brothers’ intention and of God’s in Genesis 50:20; the text does not say that God’s intention removes their guilt. Nasa (נָשָׂא, H5375) is the verb of the brothers’ plea in 50:17. Hatachat Elohim anokhi (הֲתַחַת אֱלֹהִים אָנִי), am I in the place of God, is the standard rendering in all seven translations of the site; the old Greek translation reads it as a statement. Naqam (נָקָם, H5359), vengeance, Deuteronomy 32:35. Paul’s wording in Romans 12:19 matches neither the Hebrew nor the Greek Old Testament word for word. The coals of fire in Proverbs 25:22 and Romans 12:20 are read differently (shame, conscience, judgment). The Bible does not say why Joseph tested his brothers; the narrator is silent. Hotline numbers: National Domestic Violence Hotline, 1 800 799 7233, text START to 88788; 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, call or text 988; 911 for immediate danger (United States). Notes on the story. The account is from NPR and StoryCorps, 26 February 2021. The sentence length is given by only one source, so it is not stated. The line about victims on both sides of the gun is from the StoryCorps page. A single killing, with the killer in prison, is not a pattern for staying near an abuser. Sources 1. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 3, chapter 7, “Forgiveness.” Short excerpts. 2. John Calvin, Commentary on Romans 12:19 and Commentary on Genesis 50:15 and 50:19, Calvin Translation Society editions, ccel.org. 3. John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Gospels, on Luke 17:4: two ways of forgiving. Augustine, On the Sermon on the Mount, 2.8.29, translated by William Findlay, revised by D. S. Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, volume 6. 4. “Worth Being Forgiven,” NPR and StoryCorps, 26 February 2021, npr.org. Further: Gospel in Life, “Reconciliation.”

BACK TO SERIES

Finished reading? Mark this day read.

CLIPPINGS

BEFORE YOU GO

Anything you want to keep from today?

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

EUANGELION

What Forgiveness Is Not

Romans 12:17-21; Genesis 50:15-21; Luke 17:3-4; Leviticus 19:17-18; Matthew 18:15-17; Romans 13:4

Opening

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Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Carefully consider what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone. Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written: “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord.” On the contrary, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:17-21 (BSB)

Paul writes to Christians in Rome who live among people who wrong them. He tells them what to do with the wrong, and he is not naive about it.

What Paul Asks, and What He Does Not

Paul does not tell the Romans that nothing happened to them. He assumes that evil has been done. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, he says, and he calls it evil.

Then he hands the wrong to someone else. Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for God’s wrath. The wrong is placed in the hands of the one who can judge it rightly.

REFLECT

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

A Short Prayer

Lord, You see what was done, and You do not call it small. Help me hand it to You without pretending it never happened. Show me what is mine to do, and keep me from doing what is only Yours. Amen.

IN YOUR OWN WORDS

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

Five Things Forgiveness Is Not

Many people have been hurt a second time by the word forgive. Someone used it to end a conversation or to excuse a wrong. So this day says plainly what the week does not mean.

To release a debt is to say that it was real.

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph bears a grudge? Then he will surely repay us for all the evil that we did to him.” So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Before he died, your father commanded, ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I beg you, please forgive the transgression and sin of your brothers, for they did you wrong.’ So now, Joseph, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” When their message came to him, Joseph wept. His brothers also came to him, bowed down before him, and said, “We are your slaves!” But Joseph replied, “Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God? As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this—to preserve the lives of many people. Therefore do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones.” So Joseph reassured his brothers and spoke kindly to them.

Genesis 50:15-21 (BSB)

Jacob has died. Joseph’s brothers, who once sold him as a slave, are afraid that he has been waiting for this moment. They send him a message.

What Joseph Did With His Brothers

This is Joseph’s verdict on his own story, said after many years. It is not a sentence to say to someone else about their pain.

Where Justice Goes

Two Acts, Not One

Five Years to the Visiting Room

In January 1995 a boy of fourteen named Tony Hicks shot and killed Tariq Khamisa, a twenty-year-old student who was delivering a pizza in San Diego.

Hicks was charged as an adult. He pleaded guilty and went to prison. Tariq’s father, Azim Khamisa, was left with a grief he had no way to put down.

They met in the prison visiting room in 2000. “We locked eyes for a long time. It was painful.” Azim says he told Hicks then that he had forgiven him.

Hicks remembers it too. “Your forgiveness was heavy on me,” he said later. “I didn’t feel like I was deserving because I knew what I had taken away from you.”

The sentence stood. Hicks served most of it in maximum-security prisons and was released in 2019. The two men have been in touch since.

Leave It With the Judge

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Calvin’s words are from his commentary on Romans, translated in the 1800s.

Where This Sits in the Story

ANCIENT TRUTH

Releasing the debt is a decision that belongs to you alone, and it can take as long as it takes. Trust, contact and the shape of the relationship follow what the other person does.

MODERN APPLICATION

We are asked to forgive in a world where wrongs have consequences and where some people stay dangerous. The Bible knows this, and does not ask us to be naive.

NEW TESTAMENT ECHO

Luke 17:3-4 puts rebuke and repentance beside forgiveness. Matthew 18:15-17 gives the steps for a brother who will not listen. Romans 13:4 says authorities bear the sword for a reason.

REFLECT

Which of the five things forgiveness is not have you been afraid it was?

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

Has someone used the word forgive to make you quiet? What did it cost you?
Where would it help to separate releasing the debt from restoring the relationship?
Is there someone you need to be safe from, or a person you should tell today?

A Practice for Today

Romans 12:18 sets the limits of what is yours to do. This practice takes about ten minutes. You will learn the verse so that you have it when the old anger comes back.

Read it

Read aloud: If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone.

Split it

Say it in three pieces. If it is possible. On your part. Live at peace with everyone.

Walk it

Say it once for each step as you walk across a room. Say the second piece a little more slowly.

Cover it

Cover the page and say the verse from memory. If you lose it, look and start again.

Tie it

Pick one moment of tomorrow when the hurt is likely to return. Decide you will say the verse then.

What Is Still Yours to Do

Two short lists close the day. There is what is yours to do, and there is what is not.

Not yours: to make the other person sorry. To decide how God will deal with them. To force a reconciliation that needs two. To pretend you are not hurt.

You will notice that most of the first list is quiet work. It does not make a scene. Most of the second list is the work we tend to attempt, and it wears us out.

Tomorrow the week closes with a prayer. It is the one Jesus gave his followers, and it has the same two debts in it. We will see why it is a daily prayer, and not a once-only act.

Prayer

BREATH PRAYER

Inhale: I leave it with You — Exhale: and I do what is mine

IN YOUR OWN WORDS

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

Today’s Commitment

I will tell the truth about what happened, keep myself safe, and leave the judging to God.

LEAVING AT THE CROSS

The fear that forgiving means pretending
The job of being judge over someone who hurt me

RECEIVING FROM THE CROSS

A God who calls the wrong wrong and still forgives
Permission to be careful and to be slow

Check Yourself

According to this day, which of these is something forgiveness does NOT require?

The Brother Who Was Sold

Joseph

the patriarchs, in Canaan and Egypt

Do not be afraid. Am I in the place of God?

— Joseph

LESSON FOR US

He named the harm and refused vengeance. He tested the brothers, and then he cared for them. The story gives a pattern and does not give a rule for every case.

REFLECT

One Question to Carry

What is forgiveness not asking of you?

Your writing is kept to your account, and only yours.

Sources & Further Study

RELATED SCRIPTURES

Romans 12:9-21

Love must be sincere. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 13:3-4

He does not carry the sword in vain.

Deuteronomy 32:35

Vengeance is Mine.

Proverbs 20:22

Wait on the LORD, and He will save you.

Proverbs 22:3

The prudent see danger and take cover.

Genesis 42:15-16

This is how you will be tested.

Genesis 44:33-34

Let your servant stay here in place of the boy.

Genesis 45:3-5

I am Joseph, your brother, the one you sold into Egypt.

Genesis 50:15-21

Am I in the place of God?

Luke 17:3-4

Rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.

Matthew 18:15-17

Go and confront him privately.

Leviticus 19:17-18

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge.

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CLIPPINGS

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