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Okay so where do you draw the lines?

Recently I have had a few conversations that all seem to deal with Christians struggling to deal with forgiveness and acceptance.  C.S. Lewis put it this way: “We find that the work of forgiveness has to be done over and over again. We, forgive, we mortify our resentment; a week later some chain of thought carries us back to the original offense and we discover the old resentment blazing away if nothing had been done about it at all. We need to forgive our brother seventy times seven not only for 490 offenses but for one offense.”

I have a sense that many Christians feel this way. We say “I forgive you” only to have the resentment and bitterness return from time to time. Some may need to forgive someone and then never be in the same room with that person every again. The difficultly seems to arise in how much or how often do I forgive someone especially if they are continuing in some particularly blatant sin. Should I cut off my relationship with them? Should I confront them? Should I simply be quiet and just be kind? Jesus loved but his love did not leave people the way they were.

What do you think? How have you handled the issue of forgiveness especially if is seems to be an ongoing thing. Where do you draw the lines if any lines at all?

Comments

  1. Ken the photo manFebruary 27, 2012 at 6:41 PM

    We are not like God who can forgive and forget. Being imperfect, we tend to store away the wrongdoing to use as ammo at some needful time. God forgives the sin and wipes it clean. It is as far as the east is from the west. The beauty is that God loves us anyway, horribly damaged and misguided we may be.

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