Imagine that your friend comes to you, in dire straits. He needs $600,000.00 tomorrow but the bank won't loan him the money. You agree to help him because you love him, so you head to the bank. You take out the loan in your name and hand over the check, while he assures you that he will pay you in full before the due date. You know him well and don't doubt him. The loan comes due and you have seen hide nor hair of him since you gave him the money. The bank contacts you and requests a meeting. When you go to the meeting, the bank reveals that they have conducted an investigation and found your situation. Knowing this, they are forgiving the debt, because even if they confiscated all your assets, the debt would not even be half paid. Rather than go through all that, they are willing to simply let it go-let you out of your contract. And so you are free-but not completely. Your friend, whom you loved, put you in an extremely difficult situation, and that is not easy to forget. It sits in your heart, eats you up inside. Then one day the doorbell rings. Your big brother has brought your friend to you. He looks terrible. His clothes are dirty, his face smeared with black and no shoes on his feet. While you were forgiven your debt, your friend has been hiding from you out of fear. He has slept in the deepest, darkest holes and wept the bitterest tears. Your brother has brought him to you to show you how remorseful he is, and encourages you to forgive him. But that's not so easy. How do you know that your friend won't do it again? But then your brother points out that the debt has been forgiven, whether you forgive your friend or not. The only pain is coming from the clench in your heart that you won't let go. And so, you let it go. You cry tears of pain and relief. You embrace your friend and bring him into your home, to relieve his pain and wipe his tears. He tells you his story. He invested the money with a man he thought would take him as far as he could go. But the man lied. He took all your friend's money and ran, reveling later in the misery he had caused. When your friend realized what had happened, he ran. He had tried several times to make contact with you, but you hadn't recognized him. It wasn't until your brother found him that he found the courage to confront you. And suddenly you are very glad he did, because you have not felt so happy in so long a time.
You are yourself in this story. Your friend is Sinner You, or the Natural Man, as King Benjamin would put it. The bank manager who so generously forgives your debt is your Heavenly Father, who loves you so much. Your brother is Jesus Christ, who works to reconcile your sins with God. When we sin, we put ourselves in debt with God, but He readily forgives us when we seek it. Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is ourselves. Knowing that God forgives us isn't enough, we have to know in ourselves that we forgive us. It isn't until we do so that we achieve true peace. Of that I testify, in Christ's name.
