Simple semantics? No. The
difference isn’t in the language used. It’s in the attitude of the heart.
Sorry simply
blows it off. No brokenness required. No true sorrow over what’s been done. It
appeases. To say, “Will you forgive me?” requires repentance. Humility. Others-mindedness
that comes from genuine sorrow for one’s words or behavior. It’s the difference
between offenses piling up like water behind a dam, pressurized and volatile,
and hurts washing away like water under a bridge. “Will you forgive me?”
reaches to the injuries of the heart and cleanses. Just like the blood of Jesus
does for us.
Yet, when I’m guilty, it’s a whole lot
easier to vent a casual sorry than it
is to vulnerably confess my sin and seek forgiveness. There’s something about
guilt that invites pride, welcome or not, and exposing ourselves is risky. I
can’t tell you how many simple infractions have escalated to full-out
explosions because of my unwillingness to come clean. Using deflection to make
it about the other person and not me, when a simple, “Will you forgive me?”
douses threatening embers before they swell to dangerous flames.
In the same way, may embers have been
extinguished when any one of us simply stopped and asked for forgiveness.
I don’t even remember the topic of the
fight. Stiff necked in the laundry room folding clothes from the dryer, the
words, “Why are you being so rude today?” set my emotions in a tailspin and my
defenses firmly in place. I was ready to make it all about him, and I was doing
a pretty good job, in my opinion. But he wasn’t buying it. The more I tried,
the more defenseless I truly was, and a relaxed evening at home hung in the
balance. The Holy Spirit would not allow me a moment of peace as I finished the
laundry. I slinked into my husband’s office, set aside any legitimate complaint
I might have had against him, and simply asked him to forgive me for the way I
was acting toward him. No excuses. No justification. Just forgive me.
Restoration was immediate.
Godly sorrow produced repentance that
led to salvation. Deliverance, preservation, and safety, just as Paul says it
will in 2 Corinthians 7:9-10 (KJV):
Now I rejoice, not that ye were made
sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly
manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh
repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world
worketh death.
The recipients of Paul’s letter
experienced sadness, uneasiness, regret, and grief, but what made him
exceedingly glad was that it produced repentance: a change of mind as it
appears in one who heartily amends with abhorrence of one’s past sins (metanoia and its root, donemetanoeō, www.blueletterbible.com, 2
Corinthians 7:9). It’s the difference between sorrow because you were caught
doing wrong versus sorrow for the sin itself. Not self-contrived sorrow, but
the working of the Holy Spirit in us.
And when the Holy Spirit is behind the
sorrow, pain, grief, annoyance, affliction, and mourning that leads us to a
change of mind with regards to our sin, then comes salvation, sōtēria in the Greek, which encompasses “deliverance,
preservation, safety, salvation from the molestation of enemies; in an ethical
sense, that which concludes to the soul's safety or salvation; salvation as the
present possession of all true Christians; future salvation, the sum of
benefits and blessings which the Christians, redeemed from all earthly ills,
will enjoy after the visible return of Christ from heaven in the consummated
and eternal kingdom of God” (www.blueletterbible.com,
2 Corinthians 7:10).
Feeling bad about what we’ve done
isn’t enough. All humanity is capable of sorrow, pain, and grief over wrong
actions, including those who are hostile to the cause of Christ. But their
sorrow only leads to death, thanatos in
the Greek, “ the death of the body with the implied idea of future misery in
hell; the miserable state of the wicked dead in hell; in the widest sense,
death comprising all the miseries arising from sin, as well physical death as
the loss of a life consecrated to God and blessed in him on earth, to be
followed by wretchedness in hell”; from the word thnēskō, which refers to being spiritually dead (www.blueletterbible.com, 2
Corinthians 7:10).
In other words, sorry produces death. It piles on offenses and eventually kills
relationships. It blows off that which needs balm, leaving the injured to lick
their own wounds. “Will you forgive me?” leads to salvation. It’s seeking
forgiveness as evidence of repentance. With Jesus. With each other. Husbands.
Children. Parents. Friends. Co-workers.
As imperfect as my family is, we have
lots of opportunities to use those four words. As wrapped up as I get in my own
world, I have ample opportunity to plead the quartet outside the walls of my
home. But that’s what makes our families and friendships indestructible: the
work of the Holy Spirit in us to bring us to repentance that leads to
salvation.
“You were taught, with regard to
your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by
its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put
on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his
neighbor, for we are all members of one body. ‘Be angry, and do not sin’: do
not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil” (Ephesians
4:22-27).
Sorry
is sorry. Don’t give place to the devil, my friend. Forgive and be forgiven as
you become wholly His today.
Shauna Wallace
Holy His
No comments:
Post a Comment