A man stepped on my shoe

What impact does forgivness have?

While on my way to work, a man stepped on my shoe aboard the train. He stepped on it with such force and accuracy that I was unable to pull my foot out from underneath his. He stepped on my shoe like it was the floor. Why is it that whenever you wear your favorite shoes, others seem to love to step on them? Immediately, my mind raced to visceral reactions by others having their Jordans stepped on. This was no small offence, and there needed to be recompense. There needed to be justice!

As I looked up, glaring, this older gentleman turned around. Almost stumbling, he apologised before getting off the train at his stop. My response? To continue glaring. Attempting to say with my eyes, you should be sorry, how dare you. I begrudgingly accept… No words, just anger emanating from my eyes.

This happened about two weeks ago, and when I tell you almost immediately I felt convicted over my response, I mean it. Even now, I still feel that I did a disservice to this man, myself, and ultimately God. I understand, given the weight of what occurred, this sounds crazy. I agree, it was inconsequential in nature, but small changes amount to big changes. Learning from the little moments in life leads us to handle the big ones.

What impact does forgiveness have? How did I do a disservice to this man, myself, and ultimately God?

I did a disservice to this man because I did not offer the freedom that forgiveness brings, along with the justice it upholds. Even at the moment, I felt that this man stepping on my shoe was an accident. A clumsy accident, but an accident nonetheless. How he felt after the incident is unknown to me, but it could have been a range of emotions. Perhaps he felt guilt and shame for a clumsy mistake. Maybe he felt anger at me for refusing to say anything after he said sorry, passing me off as a jerk. Maybe he didn’t think about it again, excusing his offence as nothing. What feelings he carried from the encounter are beyond me, but as forgiveness is not extended, it is not received. His thoughts and feelings were carried, and in a world of hurt, I was unable to absolve some of it.

For myself, by not extending forgiveness, I felt guilt and further frustration. I felt guilty because by holding on to what happened, I was forced to relive the moment. Forgiveness ironically sets us free, while unforgiveness sees us building a prison cell for the offender but locking ourselves inside. Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch Christian watchmaker who survived the Holocaust, said, “Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness.”

It is also important to note that stating I forgive you, differs wildly from it’s okay. It’s okay, says that the offence was no offence at all. "It’s okay, don’t worry about it." Subconsciously states that it can happen again and that it’s okay. I forgive you, on the other hand, shows that the offence was an offence, but it has been forgiven. Injustice has been cleansed, not minimized. While I am not one to argue semantics, and am not trying to rewrite the English language, I make this distinction to illustrate the subtle difference in how both statements are worded, but have different gravitas. Forgiveness comes at a price, and that price is that someone must bear the cost of whatever has happened. In the example of my shoe, by offering forgiveness, I am the one who has to deal with the fallout of my favorite shoe covered in dirt. I am the one who will clean it and repair it.

Jesus tells a parable of an unforgiving debtor in Matthew 18. In it, a man unable to pay his large debt pleads with the king, and the king, in his mercy, forgives the debt. This same man later finds someone else who owes him a small amount of money. Demanding that this other person pay the small amount of money, a similar scene unfolds. The other man pleads for more time, but the man is unrelenting, throwing him in jail until the debt is paid. The king heard about this and brought the first man back into his court, saying, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?"

We are this man. In Jesus, we have been wholly and completely forgiven for a debt we could never pay. Forgiveness should be one of the first markers of identity of a Christian. The Roman world wasn’t a world of forgiveness but revenge. The early Christians were revolutionary in how they lived. The Roman writer Lucian mocked Christians in the 2nd century for how easily they’d “forgive their brethren,” yet he noted it drew people in and compelled them to inquire further. Forgiveness is core to the Christian belief because it is core to the teachings of Jesus. Jesus forgave from the cross, showing us that in the height of injustice, forgiveness was still the way. What followed for the early church was that the outside world saw families reconcile, slaves and masters worship together, and it chipped away at social divides that Rome thrived on.

This is a very small, very silly example. With all the injustice in the world, my shoe sits at the bottom in level of importance. Nevertheless, just like the early Christians forgave easily and shaped the known world, what could the impact be if we easily forgave in the same way?

To the man who stepped on my shoe, I forgive you, and apologise for not saying so earlier. Hopefully you can forgive me too.