The cost of forgiveness . . . .

I wonder if you have been watching the news over the last week as the Credit Crunch really starts to bit with the big banking and financial institutions around the world. I have been bemused to see the extreme efforts that governments seem to be taking to steady the sinking ships. It seems that the world will end if banks we have never heard of go belly up. It seems that the people who have been getting paid big money for many years are finally getting a dose of the real world.

George Bush has been trying to get this big mega deal to help the financial system. $700 Billion dollars. The Guardian on Saturday told me that this is equal to the GDP of the world's 12th richest country and that it is equal to the US government paying out $5,530 to every person who lives in the US! Is it just me or is this a little crazy? It seems to me that the Banks are about to be forgiven for their bad debt. In order to survive the government will buy the bad debt from them. Is this not a spectacular form of forgiveness. Companies used to taking risks are being bailed out by the government. At a huge cost. I have been wondering what it might be like if my endowment mortgage fails to reach the figure I need it to get to by 2020. Will the government be there to bail me out - even though I am likely to actually have paid enough into the account . . . .

This whole financial crisis has got me thinking a lot about forgiveness. Do I resent the fact that some people get forgiven debt and others dont. Then I thought - what am I worrying about? The biggest debt in my life is already sorted. God, through Jesus, has already forgiven the fact that I invested my life in selfishness, greed, anger etc and He turned me round. Just like those big banks - I needed someone to bail me out - there was a huge cost - a cost where Jesus had to become one of us, be condemned like one of us and die like one of us - yet, He was not one of us.

My debts are forgiven. I am free. I dont need to worry about the past, the present or the future. How cool is that?
So, how do I then live this great forgiveness and share it with everyone else . . . . I think I need to work harder on my 'forgiving heart'.