Keep Pedaling

Laura Booz: Have you ever been mountain biking? I went once when I was in college. A mountain biking friend of mine took me to a beginner’s course. He led the way through the woods and around the bends, over rocks, and at one point the path in front of us wound down the hill. I mean, to a real mountain biker, it was probably just like a bunny slope, but it was terrifying to me. 

Well, my friend started the descent like it was nothing, so I followed him. But as my bike picked up speed, bumping over the rocks, bouncing around the bends, my fright instinct took over. And all I could do was close my eyes and yell, “Ahhh!”

I could hear my friend yelling back to me, “You have to keep pedaling, keep pedaling!” Which I responded, “I am pedaling!” However, something inside of me doubted that was true. So, I just opened one eye to check in with reality, and I should have known, I wasn’t pedaling. My legs were extended straight out to the sides, my toes were pointed up to the sky, and my brain was still yelling in terror. 

Hi there, you’re listening to Expect Something Beautiful with Laura Booz. Today’s episode is about forgiveness. Forgiveness is a gift of grace from God. As Christians, we can exercise forgiveness in our relationships, and it will give us great wisdom and clarity and joy. 

Because I didn’t keep pedaling, I lost control of my bike, which of course was bounding down the hill as if it was in a race with a waterfall. It skidded off of the path into a bush and that was that. My memory picks up with the two of us walking our bikes through a grassy meadow. I’m guessing that’s not the way real mountain bikers return. 

My friend yelled “keep pedaling” so I would stay in control of my bike and navigate my way safely down the slope. When real mountain bikers descend hills, they’re alert. Can’t you just picture them? They’re sharp-eyed and quick-witted. Their feet are on the pedals; their hands are on the handle bars, so they can successfully navigate the twists and turns. And they are ready to respond appropriately to every rock and route. And I’m sure whenever they have to, even if they don’t want to, they keep pedaling. 

Well, believe it or not, this principle comes to mind when I’m navigating relationships with friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, relationships are tough, right? They can feel like a mountain bike course, exciting, fun, interesting at the time, but also bumpy and winding with lots of ups and downs. There are a couple of important God-given skills to exercise in our relationships. 

One of those is forgiveness. As we navigate our way through the most challenging parts of our relationships, let’s say those terrifying bumpy downhills, Scripture doesn’t yell “keep pedaling.” But it does exhort us to keep forgiving. Keep forgiving.

When Peter asked Jesus how many times he was to keep forgiving his brother, “Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times’” (Matt. 18:22).

Biblical scholars think this means every time, completely, to the fullest extent, whatever it takes, over and over again. Keep forgiving.

Well, I hear that advice and I immediately respond with, “I am forgiving,” but when I check in with my actual thought life, how I am truly responding to people, the actual content of my prayers, I discover that instead I am keeping a record of wrongs. I am building up my defenses. I am letting roots of bitterness grow. I am enabling someone’s sin. My sinful, or even instinctual, response to another person’s sin feels like it’s going to help me navigate my rockiest relationships. But it turns out, it only leads to a bigger disaster down the road. 

If you and I want to see clearly and navigate our relationships wisely, we must tune into our heavenly Father’s voice and listen when He says keep forgiving. It helps me to pray the Lord’s Prayer every day if possible. You can find it in Matthew 6, but you may already know it well. 

In this prayer, Jesus distills down the essential elements of our daily life as humans in a sinful world. He outlines our basic everyday needs from daily bread, deliverance from evil, and one more of those needs is to keep forgiving.

Listen for Jesus cheering us on to keep forgiving as we pray the Lord’s Prayer together right now. 

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Did you hear it? Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. God forgives us, we forgive others. God forgives us, we forgive others. These two aspects of our faith go around and round together like pedaling a bike. Forgiveness is a daily, necessary, on-going cycle. 

I’ve been thinking, when we struggle to forgive people, and I often do, it may be because we’re not enjoying the gift of confession and repentance. It may be because we’re not receiving God’s forgiveness for us. God navigates His relationship with us by exercising forgiveness, like pedaling a bike daily, necessary, ongoing.

In fact, 1 John 1:9 says, 

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 1:2–2:2)

God’s forgiveness through Christ, enables us to forgive other people. He enables us to forgive big offenses as well as those daily inconveniences and annoying habits and over sights and insensitivities and growth areas. This happens twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. We literally pray, “Lord, forgive me my sin, and thank You for forgiving.” And then in response we pray, “Lord, I forgive those who have sinned against me.” 

Thankfully, our salvation in Christ does not rest upon this process of daily repentance, and daily forgiveness, but it’s as if when we put our faith in Christ, who died in our place to forgive our sin. When we put our faith in Him, it’s like He gets us on the bike, and He invites us to that mountain bike course. And then He says, “This is an essential part of the rest of your life. I have forgiven; therefore, you will forgive, and you’re going to love the ride.

So what do you say? We exercise this freedom, purchased for us by Christ on the cross, and ask our heavenly Father for the grace to confess our sin, to receive His forgiveness, and to forgive people in real time. Not to just say we’re doing it, but to really literally do it. 

Remember, it may sound a bit like this, “Lord, please forgive me my sin, and Lord, I forgive another’s sin.” It will be a bit like pedaling a bike, a daily necessary on-going cycle to get us safely and triumphantly home. 

If you’d like to explore this topic further, I hope you’ll check out this book by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth called Choosing Forgiveness. She’ll take you in-depth about what the Bible says about forgiveness and walk you through some practical steps to discover freedom from bitterness. 

You can get a copy of Choosing Forgiveness by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com. And you can always read more stories that will point you to biblical truths, by visiting my blog LauraBooz.com.

Expect Something Beautiful is a production of Revive Our Hearts calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.