77 times 7 = Freedom

In 1985, a poorly made decision by me (God told me not to go) and I went to pick up a Christian friend from work…A Christian FEMALE friend. Consequently, her life was in turmoil at the time and was in the middle of a bitter separation from her husband. I knew of this and drove at 11PM at night to go pick her up from work anyway.

Let me give you a little background on her husband. He was military like me and a practicing Tae Kwan Do Black Belt not like me…he was a very jealous man.

Apparently, he was waiting in the tree line on the other side of the road of where his wife worked.  Because of the security restrictions on the building she worked in, I wasn’t allowed inside and waited for her to get off from work.

Her husband at this point had left his hiding place and approached my car. My window was down and he took a coat hanger and wrapped it around my neck trying to pull me out the window of my car. This didn’t seem to work fast enough for him so he opened my door and yanked me out using the hanger. I had wedged my hand between the hanger and my throat which infuriated him.

At that point he took a sharpened stick (not sure where the knife was to sharpen said stick) and tried to insert it into my neck. As I tried to fight him off, I guessed he decided killing me wasn’t his first choice. He literally beat me senseless with his knowledge of martial arts. To this point, not a word was said, or none that I remember.

Meanwhile, his wife and the other workers had called the police. For some reason, her husband stopped his assault on me, picked me up off the asphalt and set me on the curb. At that point he started to talk to me, I don’t remember what he said but about that time the police showed up. The rest of the night was pretty much a blur as I was rushed to the hospital.

Why am I telling you this??? I want to share with you about forgiveness. Matthew Chapter 18 literally changed my life in viewing forgiveness. When Jesus tells Peter that he should forgive 77 times 7, this truly opened my eyes. I’ve shared in my other blogs about this before but I can see no reason why this shouldn’t be a fixture at the front of our minds. We should write 77 X 7 as a reminder everywhere we go!

God really does have an obsessive thing about forgiveness. So much so, that he mandates; He orders it. And just like any other mandate in Scripture, forgiveness is primarily mandated for our own good. God does know all; He knows that you and I will never really be healed; we will never really move toward wholeness; we will never really get on with our lives until we are able to let go of the resentment; until we can give up gaining revenge and just forgive.  

The mistakes you and I make a lot of the time is we look at who the person is who has wronged us, and we look at what they have done to us. In my taking a beating my first thought WASN’T forgiveness and I’m sure you can imagine what it was! When we have been wronged, we need to look at who God is, and what God has done for us.

This forgiveness thing is so important! In Matthew 6:12 is the middle of the Lord's Prayer is a phrase that a lot of us never think about. "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."

Have you honestly thought about what you are asking God to do there? We are asking God to treat us, to forgive us, exactly the way that we deal with other people who have wronged us. Let me write that last part again, “EXACTLY THE WAY WE DEAL WITH OTHER PEOPLE!!!”

Back to my story, did I forgive him… as a matter of fact I did. I went to the jail, against the police and my lawyer’s advice, and told him I forgave him for what he did. That Jesus was the Lord of my life and that because he had forgiven me, I was forgiving him.

In the trial, this was brought up by the defending lawyer. Consequently he was released of charges into the hand of the Military Justice system, which most likely would have happened anyways since we were both military. He served time, and was dishonorably discharged from a Military prison.

I don’t know whatever became of him but I think God forgave him and healed his heart. That he is standing in every way for the Lord in his life.

God knows!

What did it do for me?

I’m free.