Lately, I've been receiving quite a few apologies from a couple of different people I haven't heard from in a while. Those of you who know my life know who I'm talking about. Those of you who don't...well, you don't really need to know who I'm talking about. All you need to know is that these are two people I care about, whom I've known for a while, and whom I haven't heard from in a long time mostly due to a relationship meltdown that occurred a year ago between the three of us, particularly between myself and one of my friends.
There's plenty of blame to go around for what happened a year ago, and some of it isn't even localized to the three of us (and that, of course, doesn't even consider that there might be a spiritual dimension to what caused the conflict to fall apart). Nobody walked away from that disaster with his, her, or their halo intact. However, at the time, I was led to believe that all of that blame was mine to bear and that the other parties were innocent victims of my heinous acts. That turned out to be totally false and one particular party that would have gotten away scot-free is probably the majority at fault, it turns out, since it has produced a pattern of disasters just like the one I and my two friends experienced--a documented pattern stretching back for decades (though, at this time, said party seems to be trying to escape responsibility in this case by shifting inordinate amounts of blame to my two friends--in my opinion). However, these two people did do wrong and, in all fairness, they did owe me an apology. It's been over a year and in one case I've had no contact at all from my friend, so I'd given up hope on getting that apology. This weekend, I received it and I have to say that overall that's a relief.
However, that wasn't my initial reaction to seeing my friend's name pop up in my inbox for the first time in over a year with the subject line "Apology" next to it. My first reaction was just sorrow and fear. My first words were, "I don't need your apology." It's true. I don't, not for my own sake. I forgave this person a long time ago: I had to in order to move on with my own life. You don't need someone to apologize in order to forgive them: Jesus proved that when He prayed from the cross, "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34). Neither the Romans nor the Jews who crucified Him ever apologized, and certainly no one apologized to Him at the time of His crucifixion--yet He forgave.
Like I said, I did not need an apology from this person, but I wanted it. I did not need to hear them say they'd done something wrong (I figured that part out all by myself, thank you kindly), but I did want them to say that. Why then was I so upset to see an apology email from them? Wasn't this what I'd been fighting for through hierarchies of red tape literally for months? At first I thought my reaction was pure irrationality and tried to shove it aside. Next I thought it was just fear--this person had hurt me deeply in the past and it's only natural I would fear they would hurt me again. But something about these rang hallow and I could not shove past my reluctance to open that email, my distaste for even having it.
I prayed about it and asked for prayer, and that was when it occurred to me. I wasn't upset because this person was apologizing to me or upset by the fact that they finally regretted some of their actions--I was upset because that's all I thought the email represented, and that wasn't what I wanted from them at all. At bottom, I didn't really care about the apology, or their regret--having them admit to themselves and God that what they'd done was wrong was a secondary objective at best. I hadn't fought through all this because I wanted them to feel guilty. I'd wanted to be reunited with them. I'd wanted a chance to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship with them. I'd wanted to be reconciled with them once more. My interest didn't lie in their apologies or regrets, it lay in a relationship with them, in fellowship, peace, love, and unity. Why the email upset me so was because I at first thought it would offer only an apology, only regrets, and then withhold what I was really after: a way to move on and pick back up a lost bit of sweet Christian fellowship.
As good as it was to discover that my own intentions in pursuing this issue were pure and loving rather than simply an attempt to goad a couple good people into a guilt-trip, I found something far, far better. As I prayed about that email, God reminded me of all the times I would apologize to Him over and over about a particular sin, thought, or action--about how I would brood for hours or sometimes days over regretting what I'd done. I'm not interested in your regrets either, He said. I'm interested in a relationship. The Bible says it's true. He pleads with His people in Isaiah 1:18, yearning for them to come to Him and have fellowship with Him, offering to cleanse them so that their scarlet sins are white as wool. He separates our sin from us as far as the East is from the West (Psalm 103:12). He remembers them no more (Jeremiah 31:34). In my own life, He has repeatedly rebuked me for dwelling on past sin. He does not do this for some mysterious capricious reason: He does it because He loves us. Our sin has separated us from Him, and all He wants is for us to put it away and return to Him so that we may know Him. He does not want to leave this process half-done, but on the other hand He does not let it take one second longer than necessary--for He longs to be with us! How great is our Savior! How great is His love!
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