There’s a movie called Bruce Almighty, where the main character, played by Jim Carrey, actually becomes God. There’s some pretty funny bits, and some sobering ones too. In one scene Carrey starts hearing all the prayers of everyone on earth. He tries several ways of dealing with it and fails. He then sets up a system of answering the prayers online. It goes okay at first, but by the time he finishes answering the first few million prayers, there’s millions of new ones.
This is how I started feeling yesterday.
I had posted on twitter and Facebook that I was preparing a message about forgiveness, and wanted to know what was the hardest thing people had to forgive. Within minutes I was getting messages and responses.
Dozens. And they were agonizing. Heartbreaking.
Over and over again people wrote things like, “I was violated.” “I was abused.” “I was molested.” “I was betrayed.” “I was abandoned.” “I was cheated.” “I was heartbroken.” My eyes filled with tears. I tried to write everyone back with some kind of encouraging words, but it was almost overwhelming.
I began to think of how God’s heart must break as he sees and hears all these kinds of things that have happened to people. However, unlike me and Bruce Almighty, God is never overwhelmed.
God is amazing in that he forgives, heals and restores the fractures, offenses, wounds, hurts, and brokenness in our lives, not matter how severe or how abundant. He can handle it! It’s this aspect of God’s power and character, his grace and his mercy, that makes us love him and want to worship him.
But God doesn’t stop there. He expects the same thing from us.
“And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32)
The way God has forgiven us of the wrongful and hurtful things we’ve done to others, he expects us to do likewise to those who have wronged us. This may seem impossible and even unfair; but it’s the only way we can to truly be healed and released from the hurt. The same grace that flowed from God to us will flow through us to heal what others have done to us.
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