Forgiveness

Forgiveness

"To look upon another — his weaknesses, his sins, his faults, his defects — is to look upon one who is suffering. He is suffering from negative passions, from the same sinful human corruption from which you yourself suffer. This is very important: do not look upon him with the judgmental eyes of comparison, noting the sins you assume you’d never commit. Rather, see him as a fellow sufferer, a fellow human being who is in need of the very healing of which you are in need. Help him, love him, pray for him, do unto him as you would have him do unto you." -- Tikhon of Zadonsk

"That said, it is not enough to say that we all sin and therefore we ought to give each other a pass — which is how some treat the scriptural injunction against casting judgment. What Tikhon says that if we judge our brother, we are judging ourselves. We all suffer together. But we don’t get on by sweeping things under the rug. We don’t need a pass. We need grace and repentance.

"This is the full meaning of doing unto others, as it relates to judging them. It’s the full meaning of bearing one another’s burdens. We don’t condemn the gossip, the glutton, the griper, or the groper. We instead pray for their healing (and ours). The unkind, the undisciplined, the unchaste, the ungodly need grace just like we do. If we are doing unto others as we would have done to ourselves, we will pray for their salvation as we hope for our own.

"As Duke Ellington said, only God is without fault. And only God can save those who fall short of his glory. That includes the person screwing up and the person judging him for it." -- Joel J. Miller