Forgiveness does not change what was done to South Sudanese
8 min readForgiveness does not change what was done to South Sudanese, but will change us instead of an eye for an eye reaction, we respond in God’s love
By Lino Lual Lual, Juba, South Sudan
May 18, 2016 (SSB) — Love both your enemies and your friend’s enemies. It is a teaching that is central to all that Jesus did and said. Whatever you think about the war in Iraq, Rwanda and South Sudan are devastating. I understand people have fought with the weapons they have available to them that have cause grave destruction in the region and their weapons are simpler, still I can hardly believe that we in our day and age are watching people being guillotined.
What does it mean to see again the same people who did this coming back? There, some of us in our families lost fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters and also have suffered abuse and violence. What does it mean to love those who have done this to us?
There are those among us who have suffered harshly as a result of tribal line, clan-ism and homophobia. What does it mean to love people who live their lives with an attitude of hatred? Doesn’t loving the people who do these kinds of things somehow make us complacent in their attitudes and actions. What really does it mean to love an enemy? The person who has helped me the most in understanding Jesus’ teaching about loving our enemies is, Ustaz Marko Wol. In his book on the teachings of Jesus entitled, The Good Heart, perspectives on the teaching of Jesus.
Ustaz Marko Wol, suggests that to understand what Jesus means by loving our enemies we need to be careful to read on to finish the rest of the sentence as Jesus said it. Jesus says, love your enemies so that you may be children of your parent in heaven who makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and who send rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matt. 5:45)
God apparently does not get up in the morning and say. Those people of Washington D.C, have not acted well this week so they are going to get a hurricane. God does not get up in the morning and say, I am going to send sunshine on those who are doing well. I am going to send rain to those farmers who are living right. God has created a universe that reflects the nature of who God is rather than what we as individuals and people deserve.
The meaning of loving our enemies is to treat other people the way we are, rather than the way they deserve.
Doing all this while remaining non-anxious, which means keeping our sense of humor, doing it with a good spirit. To love our enemies means not letting others define us.
Mostly we live our lives in reaction to other people. If they treat us well, we treat them well. If they are honest with us, we are honest with them. If they are nice to us, we are nice back to them. Jesus says anybody can do that. The question is whether we will choose to be good to those who mistreat us, because of who we have decided to be? Will we choose to be honest when those around us are being dishonest because of who we have decided to be? Will we choose to care for others when others seem to care mostly for themselves because of who we have decided to be?
I have come to realize that it is critically important for me to take time every day to remember who I am. The most important time in my days is the 45 minutes on every Sunday morning when I walk from home to the church. It is my time for prayer, to think my thoughts and to feel my feelings in the presence of God. Most days during the first ten minutes of my walk, I am reacting to what I suppose most of you and the rest of the world want me to be and do. On good mornings, after about 10 minutes I begin to get in touch with who I believe God wants me to be and what I believe God wants me to do. Then when I get here to the church I am able throughout the day to be effective. Then, at the end of the day, I walk that same 45 minutes’ home. I process what I have done and ask God’s forgiveness for what I have messed up and begin to let go of the anxieties that have built up during the day so by the time I get home I am decent enough to be with the people. Loving your enemies, being who you are rather than reacting to others, is the hardest thing in the world. That is why in our faith is the image of loving your enemy is the cross of Jesus Christ — to die to our own desire for retaliation, to die to our own resentments, to die to the anger we hold within ourselves, to die to our own will that we want to impose on others, to die to all that
Part 2: To instead be loving when other people are not loving us, to be caring when others are not caring about us, to be generous when others are not generous to us, to be honest when others are manipulative, to be forgiving when others hold onto grievances.
This is hard. This is the way of the cross. This is the only way to new life and to resurrection. The great danger of having an enemy is that somehow we will become like our enemy. Our only hope is this grace of God which has made us to be God’s children. May we live, not in reaction to the world around us, but may we live like our parent in heaven, who no matter what we do gives us sunshine and rain and more blessings than our hearts can hold. How can we forgive those who have hurt us and forget what they have done? Only with our obedience to God and His Word are all things are possible.
Every one of us in South Sudan have gone through things which have left us all hurt, wounded, and even betrayed. We are left wondering, is there no relief, no justice? Do I have to live without peace or rest in my life over what someone did to me? No! Praise be to God, in Him we can find the rest and the peace we need. Our decision to forgive, is where the healing process starts. We must come to the realization that our relationship with Jesus Christ is more important than holding on to our hurts and wounds.
Forgiveness if not dealt with can cause us to become bitter and angry in our hearts. Jesus Christ is bigger than all our hurts and wounds and the feelings we experience when we have
been done wrong. The distress we feel is real, but we must
know beyond a shadow of doubt that we can choose to forgive.
Even though the event is painful, bewildering and sometimes shocking, we can choose to walk away. We can choose to stand in the power of forgiveness by obeying God’s Word. What happens when our feeling are hurt, or we are done wrong? Although we do not want to hear the answer it is our own pride that is the culprit. We were insulted, we were misused, we were taken advantage of, and so forth. Probably the thought never enters our minds that we might be grieving Jesus by our actions.
He was wounded, rejected, misused, abused and finally crucified by the ones He came to save. Yet, he chose not to entertain un forgiveness because of their actions. He chose to keep His
relationship with the Father at all costs and even at the point of death cried out, Father forgive them they know not what they are doing. Can we do any less than follow the path Jesus has set before us? Following in His footsteps is the only way we can have the power to walk in forgiveness and ultimately to forget.
Will forgiveness stop us ever being hurt by people again, no? But obeying God and deciding to forgive will bring healing to our lives and not hinder our relationship with God. Not forgiving will short circuit the flow of anointing in our lives.
One of the hindrances to forgiving others is many of us have difficulty in forgiving ourselves.
The decision to forgive returns love for wrong to the person who brought the hurt. If we don’t forgive then we return hurt for hurt in some way or another and we become just like the person who hurt us. We react instead of responding with love and the Word of God.
Once our decision to forgive is made God will flood us with peace and strength to overcome the natural circumstances of the incident. It is not based on feelings, or the facts of right or wrong, or on the reaction of the other party. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)
As God’s army for the last days we must forgive and forget all things done against us. We must respond to hurts with love and obedience to the Word and repent for our sin of forgiveness.
The last day’s revival and harvest of souls will greatly depend on our ability to move with God’s program instead of what we think or want.
The reason Jesus was sent was to bring forgiveness to you and I for the wrongs we have done. We must learn to give what was so freely given to us, to one another.
Take a giant leap of faith this very day and make the decision to forgive everyone and anything that has ever hurt you or done you wrong.
The resulting freedom in your life will overwhelm you. God’s love will flow forth from you to others in ways you have may not have experienced. God is a good God and wants you blessed in
every area of your life. Do it right now, Forgive and Forget
The author is a master of strategic studies at Centre for Peace and Development Studies University of Juba, He can be reached via Linolual69@yahoo.com
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