Repentance--and the Failure to Forgive

To repeat a sentence India’s Tagore said, “Only let me make my life simple and straight.” But this we do not always do. We let life become cluttered and complicated.

We make mistakes, for which we need repentance and forgiveness. And in needing forgiveness we must offer it to others also.

No one is as happy as he could be if he has a conflict with conscience or has not honestly repented of an unworthy act. Nor is anyone as happy as he could be if he is grudgingly withholding his forgiveness from a sincerely repentant person.

“He that cannot forgive others,” said George Herbert, “breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass . . . for every one has need to be forgiven.”

All our lives would be unhappy and frustrated without the blessed principle and privilege of repentance, and well would we remember what the master said concerning our obligation to forgive others as we would be forgiven.

If a truly repentant person were to approach another person sincerely and repeatedly, but always find an unrelenting, unforgiving attitude, there would come a time when the offender would feel that there was no use trying to make amends. Hopelessness, indifference, and a “don’t care” attitude may result from an unreasonable, stubborn failure to forgive. And if we are obdurately unforgiving, if we are unreasonably unapproachable to the sincerely repentant person, we may take upon ourselves an element of responsibility for future offense, since the unreasonable failure to forgive may take away, in part, the reason for repenting.

The obligation works both ways⎯on the offended as well as the offender⎯on the one, to see that his repentance is sincere and not superficial⎯sincere to the point of changing his ways and trying to make amends⎯and on the other, to accept a sincere repentance.

We all make mistakes; we all need understanding; we all need repentance and forgiveness. “He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass . . .”