Forgiving others is tough. If we’ve suffered insults, bullying or other hurtful things, forgiving our attackers is the last thing we feel like doing. And how are we meant to forgive someone if they aren’t sorry, don’t think they have done anything wrong or just don’t care? How can we forgive someone who does something really bad, something that permanently changes our lives for the worse, even if they are sorry?

To forgive someone can feel like we’re letting them off the hook; that whatever it is they did doesn’t matter. There are no consequences for what they’ve done, they haven’t paid for it so they get away with it.

But it does matter. It matters to you and it matters to God. So why does God ask us to forgive rather than seek revenge or payment?

For one thing, holding grudges only hurts us, not the person we are angry with. Grudges end up making us bitter and angry people. But getting revenge isn’t the answer either. It might make us feel good to put the other person down or get even somehow. But in the end it only makes things worse as the relationship gets nastier and nastier.

Forgiving people for really bad things is something that is actually too hard for us to do on our own. But it’s not too much for God. So the only way can really forgive is by plugging into God’s strength through trusting Jesus. Then we don’t have to try and do it by ourselves and in our own strength. When we become Christians and ask for Jesus’ help, he gives us the power (through his Holy Spirit) we need to help us forgive others.

And God expects us to forgive others because he has forgiven us. He asks us to be like him.

Jesus tells a story in the Bible of a king who forgave his servant a very big debt. The servant was unable to pay and pleaded with the king who then cancelled the debt completely. The servant then went to another man who owed him a small amount and demanded he pay up straightaway. When the man couldn’t, the servant had him thrown in jail. When the king heard this he called the servant a “wicked man” and had him put in jail until he could pay all he owed. (see Matthew, chapter 18 verses 21-35 in the Bible).

In this story the king is a picture of God and the servant is us. As we read it we recognise how unkind the servant is, enjoying the king’s kindness and generosity, but not willing to show that kindness himself. So if God asks us to be like him, how do we do it when we know we’re more like the servant? We don’t have God’s patience, kindness or self control. We do get mad with people, we lose our patience, say things before thinking and do things we really shouldn’t.

So how do we learn to think and behave differently, how do we learn to forgive?

The short answer is with God’s help and with practice. As we learn more about God, what he is like and what he has done for us, we begin to see how wonderful and amazing he is and so we want to please him more than we want to please ourselves. So when we are faced with difficult circumstances, we begin to see things in a different way. We begin to think and act a little more like God does. It takes time to change like this. But as we get to know God better, he promises to make us more like him.

— Gill, an Our Daily Bread reader