Today's Reading
On forgiveness
I find that when I think
() I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality (unless I watch
myself very carefully) asking Him to do something quite different.
I am
asking Him not to forgive me but to excuse me.
But there is all the
difference in the world /between forgiving and excusing.
Forgiveness says
“Yes, you have done this thing, but I accept your apology,
I will never
hold it against you and everything between us two will be exactly as it
was before.”
But excusing says “I see that you couldn’t help it or
didn’t mean it, you weren’t really to blame.”. . .
Real
forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin, the sin //that is left over
/without any excuse,
after all allowances have been made,
and seeing it
/in all its horror, dirt, meanness and malice,
and nevertheless being
wholly reconciled to the man //who has done it.
* 보어로 쓰인 동명사구
means looking ~ and seeing ~, and nevertheless being
From The Weight of Glory
Compiled in Words to Live By
The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses.
Copyright © 1949, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1976,
revised 1980 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with
permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.