When the disciples asked Jesus how many times should we forgive others, He responded with a hyperbolic number (70×7) which means an unlimited number of times. If we are serious about doing what Jesus asked us to do; to forgive an unlimited number of times, it is reasonable to assume there will be many times when we forgive people who do not say they are sorry.
Here’s some thoughts that can help us with this: We can not make someone feel sorry for offending us nor can we make them ask us for forgiveness. They must feel remorse on their own and ask for forgiveness from their heart. We can bring an offense to their attention but we can’t make them sorry for offending us. So what do we do if we don’t get what we need from those who hurt us? We must try to root out any bitterness and resentment. If we can do this, we have an unobstructed path to forgiving our offenders. Without doing this, it is difficult to get to a place we can genuinely forgive people for offending us – wether they ask for forgiveness or not.
We must also be introspective about our own failures and how many times we have hurt others. This puts what others have done to us in right prospective. Honest reflection and introspection will help us to put ourselves in our offenders situation and will humble us to a point where we feel worse about what we have done to others than what others have done to us. This makes forgiving much easier.
JH