Balanced Forgiveness

Psalm 99:8  O LORD our God, you answered them; you were to Israel a forgiving God, though you punished their misdeeds. 

There's more to God, and more to the Christian life, than just being forgiving.

In this psalm I find similar language to the previous one with the author exalting God for His positive traits. He also mentions great men of Israel's history such as Moses, Aaron, and Samuel. It is these people that are most likely referred to in verse eight as "them". However, the part that stood out to me was the second part of the verse. Here it describes how God was forgiving to the people of Israel, though He punished them for what they did wrong.

It's interesting that forgiveness and punishment are mentioned in the same thought. God could punish them while at the same time being a forgiving God. I think a lot of times we do God a disservice when we only focus on one aspect of His character, and I think we do ourselves a disservice when we only focus on one aspect of the Christian walk. We are taught so much the concept of turning the other cheek, and "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" that we have a tendency to be wimpy Christians. We can also be strong and be forgiving at the same time.

I talked about being strong first simply because I currently see more of an imbalance in that direction, but don't get me wrong, there are plenty of professed Christians who are imbalanced in the other direction. They focus more on the punishment/strength aspect than on the forgiveness aspect. What those in that camp don't understand is that it takes a lot of strength, perhaps even more strength, to forgive than to punish. It's easy to hurt someone for some wrong deed, but not always so easy to truly forgive them for that deed.

Help me Lord to exhibit all traits of your character, and not just the ones that I like best.