Love the Unlovable

Recently, I found myself reflecting on loving people we often describe as "unlovable."  

As someone serving among young students, one question keeps surfacing, "Why should I keep forgiving someone who keeps hurting me? Why keep loving someone who keeps betraying my trust? At what point do I stop?" These are not easy questions. They are honest ones.  

The answer we often give sounds simple enough. "Because every time you sin and ask for forgiveness, God keeps forgiving you."  It is true. We believe it. We teach it. We encourage others with it.  

Yet when we become the ones who have been hurt, betrayed, disappointed, or taken for granted, that answer suddenly becomes much harder to live. We know what Jesus asks of us, but our hearts quietly ask, "Again? Really?"  

Then I came across a thought, "Maybe God tells us to forgive seventy times seven not because they will keep reoffending, but because you will keep remembering it."  There is truth in that.  

But perhaps there is another side to it. What if they really do keep offending? What if they genuinely keep failing, breaking promises, and hurting people? Jesus never denied that possibility. In fact, He seemed to assume it. After all, isn't that exactly what we do before God?   

Then another question confronts me. Who decides that I have become the better person? Who decides that my repeated sins deserve another chance, while someone else's repeated failures have finally exhausted grace?  

That doesn't mean we ignore wisdom, healthy boundaries, or justice. Forgiveness is not the same as pretending nothing happened. But it does remind me that I stand before God as someone who still depends on mercy every single day. 

Perhaps that is why Jesus keeps pointing us back to the cross. Every time I ask, "How many more times should I forgive?" another question quietly returns, "How many more times has Christ forgiven me?"