Walk The Talk

There is an old cliché about “Walking the walk and talking the talk.” It is about doing the things you say you are going to do. There is another cliché that isn’t really around and it is a combination of the other. I say you should “Walk the talk.” It isn’t so much about doing what you say you are going to do as much as it is about being what you say you are.

As Christians, we say that we do certain things and believe certain things and don’t do or avoid others. Too many of us don’t believe or act on what we say we believe. Christians are supposed to be forgiving people, yet how many do you know, and maybe you fit this yourself, who don’t forgive someone for what they did or didn’t do. Whether it is the Lord’s Prayer in which we tell God to forgive us as we forgive others, or Jesus telling someone that we should forgive someone seventy times seven times (which really meant there was no limit), the direction we were given was to forgive. It is not something we do easily. Some never do it at all.

As Christians, we should ‘forgive and forget’ when we have been wronged. When we ask God to forgive our sins, we also expect that he will forget them as well. They are in the past; he has forgiven them, and does not hold them against us. While we all like to be remembered, we don’t like it when someone tells us they have forgiven what we did or didn’t do, and then proceeds to remind us over and over about the thing we did.

Forgiving one another should be something we do almost automatically. That isn’t to say that we should just let it go by without saying a word or acting on whatever was done to us. We do have an absolute right to confront the other person and make them understand what they have done. There may or may not be a punishment associated with that, as when that person is one of the kids and needs to make sure he or she understands not only what was done but also that all actions have consequences. It is what comes next that is just as important, if not more so. Forgiveness.

Your attitude may be one of “I could never forgive that”. Are we not all supposed to be trying to be like Jesus? Do you not remember the passage in the Passion Gospel where Jesus, hanging on the cross and in terrible pain, looked up to Heaven and said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”? Can we do less than that if we are to emulate him? If he could forgive the ones who gave him hours of intense pain which was about to cause his death, then how can we not forgive the small things, by comparison, that are done to us?

Forgiving others as we wish to be forgiven is not only a Christian duty, it is a privilege. It allows us to be more like Jesus Christ. How can we not take advantage of this beautiful opportunity?