Forgiveness: The Freedom of the GospelSample

Forgiveness is a Choice

Forgiveness isn’t a process, it is a choice. It is a transactional decision that we are to make quickly.

A few years ago, we were ministering at the Narkis Street Congregation in Jerusalem.  As Toni was setting up our resource table, a lady whose name is Marika, noticed our book, Forgiving Forward and declared, "I have a big forgiveness story. Would you like to hear it?" We're always up for hearing forgiveness stories, so Toni responded, "Sure, I’d love to hear your story!"

Marika was a 76-year-old single lady who had felt God’s call to move to Israel from Holland to be a foster mother for Arab orphans. She had fostered over 30 children in her 30 years in Jerusalem. About 18 months prior to her conversation with Toni, Marika was traveling by bus to get groceries, sitting by the center door, when two Arab men got on the bus at a stop. One of the men sat in the front, while one sat across from her. As the bus started moving, the man in the front stood up and began opening fire with a gun, killing and wounding passengers. The guy next to Marika jumped on top of her and stabbed her five times before attacking other people on the bus.

One of the stray bullets shattered the glass door next to her. As she laid there bleeding, she thought to herself, "Do I play dead or do I try to escape?” She chose to try to escape through the  broken glass. As she stumbled out the door and down the street, she cried out, “Lord, help!” What she heard next was surprising. “I will not send help for you until you first forgive the man who just tried to kill you." 

“What?” Toni interrupted, “God said He wouldn’t send you help unless you forgave the man who had just attacked you?” 

“Yes! That is what God said. He said, ‘I will make everything well if you forgive.’ So out loud I  said, ‘Ok, Lord. I forgive the man who just tried to kill me, for trying to kill me.’"

“You forgave the man right then and right there on the street?”

“Yes. You see, God is good, He is profoundly good and has forgiven me. How could I not forgive? So, I just did. Then immediately, a Jewish man pulled up in a Mercedes, got out of his car, took off his shirt, wrapped up the worst wound on my arm, put me in his car, drove me to the hospital, and dropped me off. As they were wheeling me into the hospital, I looked back to say ‘Thank you’ and he had disappeared.” 

Marika went on to share that of all the victims, she healed quicker than any of the other ones who survived the attack. After a few days in the hospital, the crisis counselor team came to her room and said, "We need to ask you a question. There is something we don’t understand."

"What don't you understand?"

"You are where we try to get every one of our patients and we never get them here. How did you get here?"

She said, "I forgave."

Like Steven in Acts 7, Marika understood that God expects forgiven people to forgive others because forgiveness is at the core of the Gospel. When she chose to forgive immediately, God truly did “make all things well.”

Next we will examine key principles that will help us know how to forgive.