(trespass)

This week, my brother's home was robbed.

Things were taken: computer, movies, an instrument. Their home was ripped apart, sheets off the beds, drawers ransacked. This was not the sight my sister-in-law expected arriving home after a playdate with the kids. My nephew's words: "Uh-oh, the house is messy."

Thankfully, thankfully, no one was home. Thankfully, the robbers did not hurt their golden retriever. Thankfully, only stuff was taken, and stuff can be replaced.

But security, peace, comfort? How easily is that replaced?

My brother's feelings were expressed with one word: MAD.

When someone chooses to violate your private space, take things that belong to you and trash your possessions, I think anger is a very normal emotion.

So this week, as I was participating in morning prayer from the lectionary, I was praying the Lord's model prayer. These words pierced me:

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.


The thing is, when people sin and offend us, they are trespassing. Just like the thieves were trespassing on my brother's property, there are those walk over us and take things that are meant to be ours: dignity, respect, encouragement, love. They steal from us. And our Heavenly Father desires for us to forgive, forgive the thieves, the robbers.

On what basis?

Because, of course, forgiveness is not a natural by-product of trespass. That's just the thing; it's supernatural.

It's what God has done for us.

We, too, have robbed from God. We have stolen His glory, we have trespassed His laws, we have thrown and ransacked and abandoned His love.

And yet He forgives.

Believe me, this is hard. I am struggling with this. Yet, this is truth. And if this is truth, this is also freedom because that is what truth does; sets us free.

And so I pray to forgive those who trespass against me. I pray that God gives me the grace to be able to rise above the fear, the anger, the feeling of losing.

Because I, the thief, the trespasser of God, have been forgiven.