Bruises Are Mine

"But, Lord, how can I forgive as I ought,
When my estranged friend fails to importune?
He told me your pardon's already sought;
Shouldn't he also seek mine for the wound?
I wait ready, his offense to forgive,
If only he'd repent his attack aloud;
Since he caused the rift in the way we live,
Should he not beg me to remove the cloud?"
"My son, yours is to turn the other cheek,
And rejoice in his repentance to me;
Your hurt but provoked him mercy to seek;
You are not your own; you are mine, you see!
Praise His holy name! I did not know this;
The bruises are mine; forgiveness is His!

I learned a hard lesson, and it is this: Believers are not to return blow for blow, or to seek redress for persecutions and offenses against us in this world; we offer ourselves as victims, so that those who mistreat us will be motivated to seek God's pardon and thus be persuaded to accept salvation.
Our suffering is a gift to God---an offering that allows us to share in Christ's enormous sacrifice for us. We should rejoice in suffering unjustly and accept it as Jesus accepted the cross for us.


A lifelong Christian friend with a quick temper unjustly accused me on the golf course one day of deliberately recording his score wrongly. We had an unusually bitter wrangle, barely speaking to each other the rest of the day.
I was angry and intended not to golf with him again, although we were almost daily partners. My telephone rang that evening, and it was my friend. Although we had had such run-ins before, and he had never apologized, this one was so excessive that I was all set to hear him say he was sorry. Instead, he cheerfully asked the usual, "What time should I pick you up in the morning?"

I was shocked, to say the least. I stumbled in my answer, "Well, I would have thought you would have said something about that temper tantrum you threw today!"

"Oh, that? I took care of that as soon as I got home. I asked the Lord to forgive me." I almost dropped my teeth. Did he think he could confess his transgression only to the Lord and omit redress to the person he offended? Yes, that is exactly what he thought! And he was right! As far as which was the most important, asking forgiveness of God for a sin or to the one harmed by your actions, God is by far the most important. However, like Zaccheus, the tax collector, the sinner needs to seek out the persons sinned against for redress, as a matter of courteous public relations; but in terms of eternal relations, God must be first addressed. Yes, I went golfing with him as usual; not a word was ever said about the incident again between the two of us. I confess, though, that it took me many years of meditation until I felt like I was wrong in expecting reparation from him. That's how strong human nature grips us. We can never truly understand how God wants us to live until the animal inside us is tamed into the image of Christ.