by Matt Nord

Created on: April 19, 2009

A lot of Christians seem to have a wrong understanding of what forgiveness is and what it means to forgive. Let me preface anything else in this article by saying that, while I understand in concept what it means to forgive and why forgiveness is the way to go (which I do believe), I am an infant maturity-wise when it comes to the practice of forgiveness. I find myself talking a good game when it comes to a load of this theological stuff, but when it comes to actually putting it into play, I'm nowhere near where I feel I should be. This isn't me trying to be self-depreciating. This is me being honest. Well, this is actually starting to go off into territory that should be another article, so, to get back on track

The Christian world, at least the Christian world that I've been pushed into, seems to have the idea that forgiveness and forget"ness" are one and the same. But is there ever any time that this really happens? Can we truly forgive someone to the point that we can completely look past what they've done? I really wish that I could do this, but I don't even know if I've ever done that. I suppose on some level I've forgiven minor indiscretions people have committed against me, but that's obviously not what I'm referring to.

In order to even be honest about the concept of forgiveness, we must at least admit it's easier for us to hold a grudge than to completely forgive. Another thing that seems to be, at least in my experience and opinion, is that it seems to be easier to "forgive" someone that's far removed from you than to forgive someone that is close to you. I see this in two different ways: proximity and time. Now, both of these came be related.

Let me explain myself a bit. I'll use myself as an example. My wife has a few step siblings that are rotten. I mean to the core. We're talking about people that are in it for themselves and could care less about anybody else. You can already see the bitterness coming out with me just thinking about them. I won't get into details, but for the past year and a half we've been struggling in an attempt to forgive them for some fairly bad things that they did, and lies they've said, about our family. The real reason it's so difficult? They live right around the corner from us.

Contrast that with my half-brother, who my sister and I signed a large piece of our inheritance over to, including a huge piece of land that our father had intended to turn into a camp for the family. Our brother told us he was going to see that

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