I Should Forgive My Algebra Teacher

I was pretty good in math as a kid. I was flash card champ in the 5^th grade – or something like that. I was really good at multiplication and addition and not quite as strong at division and subtraction. I was also good in grammar. I knew how to diagram sentences, and I could even locate Indirect Objects. Johnny gave Jill a brand new book. SEE! In a sense I guess you could say I was good with letters and numbers.

But I bailed out when algebra rolled around and they started putting letters with the numbers. I didn’t pursue too many algebra, trig, geometry, and calculus classes. I abandoned the numbers and set my course with the letters. I wish someone would have told me that bean counters and engineers make a more abundant living than talkers and writers.

A particular multiplication problem found in the Bible causes me great problems. Here it is:

Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”

Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. – Matthew 18:21-22

It’s not the math that trips me up – I know that 70x7=490. It’s not even the understanding and meaning that gives me fits – I know that Jesus is not limiting forgiveness to only 490 times, but instead he is speaking figuratively that there should be no end to our willingness to forgive a fellow believer. Where I have difficulty is in implementation. I don’t like to forgive.

Yet my reticence to forgive took on a new light to me recently when I offered an apology to a brother and asked him to forgive me. I had made an unintentional mistake and wanted to clear the air and move forward in our walk with God. But he did not accept my apology and I was withheld forgiveness.

That was a very strange feeling; I had never had that happen before. In the gazillion times in my life when I have apologized for something, I had previously received a gazillion graces. But not this time. Suddenly, I was able to feel the opposite emotion to the relief we all feel when another extends grace and forgives us, and this opposite emotion has made me more sensitive to the need to be forgiving of others – even to this one who refused to forgive me.

I need to forgive, if for no other reason than I too have been forgiven. Also, if I choose not to forgive, I cannot receive forgiveness. After all, in the model prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray that God would forgive us our debts AS we forgive our debtors. As. In like manner. To the same degree as. Tit for tat. If I want to receive grace, I should give grace.

So, what was meant to hurt me has actually helped instead. This experience of “anti-grace” or whatever you would call it, has helped me to see how liberating forgiveness is to both the giver and receiver. Today I choose to erase everyone’s spreadsheet. I forgive. Even if I am not forgiven by them.

“Oh to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be,

Let thy grace, Lord, like a fetter, bind my wondering heart to THEE,

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.

Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for THY courts above.”