To Forgive My Brother 77 Times

I've internally reflected on this issue many times ever since my brother told me he couldn't be one of my groomsmen. He gave his reason, and the fact that it was personal to him and he was able to share it, should have been the end of it.

So why did I feel like he had wronged me? Regardless of the reason behind his decision and regardless of how I feel about it, I should be able to forgive him. As a Christian, I should be able to forgive and forget. In Matthew 18: 21-22, he writes:

Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.

I think that as we go about our lives and the disappointments in our lives weigh heavily on us, we must not internalize them too deeply. They will hurt us and will scar us. We need to remember Jesus' words and take them to heart, especially in my case, when a loved one has wronged me.

I felt some anger; I felt some disappointment; I certainly felt sad; but most interestingly, I felt like I was owed something. In this case, my brother doesn't really owe me anything. He would be doing me a favor by being a groomsman. I really have no ground to stand on when it comes to the exact reason why I felt the way I did. I suppose that the rejection just didn't seem very likely, so I wasn't prepared for it. I was shocked, but there's not much else to it. I needed to learn to let it go and move forward. At this point, many months later, I can finally feel like the burden has been lifted. Forgiving my brother for this isn't the first time I've had to forgive him for something, and it certainly won't be the last.

So even if you find yourself wondering if it's seventy-seven or seventy times seven, we can rest assured knowing that Jesus wants us to understand that we should never stop forgiving. There's no doubt that forgiving someone is difficult, but being disciples of Jesus has rarely ever been easy. We are going against the grain of society in most cases, but I believe we are meant to do it, and to show the world that we mean it when we live out our faith.

In the end, I have forgiven my brother, and I anticipate the need to forgive him many more times in the future. It's not easy and I don't think it's ever really going to be easy, but the more I reflect on that Bible verse, the more I feel that I need to do it, not for my own sake, but for the sake of my brother and being a good disciple of Jesus.

Faithfully yours,

Khang