“If you could have a superpower, what would it be?”
My son, Thomas, asks me that question every few weeks. His dream superpower changes every time he asks – from flight to invisibility, to super-human strength.
At this point in my life, my dream superpower would be Super-Metabolism: Being able to eat as much chocolate as I want without gaining an ounce. My costume would be dripping in chocolate syrup and lined with chocolate-covered strawberries. Every nibble would count as a mile run.
It’s a fun question to think about, a fun dream to dream. Super human abilities are so appealing. Being better than we are – Krista 2.0 – is exciting.
A while back, my pastor spent a couple weeks talking about forgiveness. Forgiveness is tough. Really tough. We’d rather eat glass than forgive someone who’s really hurt us. And asking for forgiveness?? We’d rather eat glass while rolling in it. At least I would. I hate saying “I’m sorry.” And, sometimes, I hate offering forgiveness. It seems too simple. When someone hurts me, I want to hurt them back. Forgiving them is so nice. It feels like I’m just letting them off the hook. Where’s the payback?
And then it dawned on me: Forgiveness is the greatest superpower ever. True forgiveness is something we can only truly offer if we have accepted it in our own lives. God offers us forgiveness through Christ. Complete forgiveness. No asterisks, small print, no “but I’ll never forget what you did…” And our response — complete devotion to this wonderful Savior who lavished his grace on us, that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Christ’s forgiveness frees us from slavery to sin, it allows us to know we will spend eternity in heaven, it gives us joy and freedom here on earth to do what God has called us to do. And yet, while we are quick to accept God’s forgiveness, we Christians are sometimes very slow to offer it. Which is sad because it should be the opposite. We, who have been forgiven so much, should joyfully, lovingly offer it to others. We should humbly request it from those we have hurt.
This “superpower” has the ability to do greater good than almost anything else on earth, yet we often neglect it or reason it away. On our own, we can’t “tap into” its power, but we “can do all things through Christ” who strengthens us. We can offer forgiveness. We can accept forgiveness. We can seek forgiveness.
What a super world we would live in if we just used this power that God makes available to us, this Super Power called Forgiveness.
