What are politics like where you live? Are you angry? Or happy? The United States, and Britain have had elections with radical changes, and soon Canada and Germany will follow. The western democratic societies are becoming polarized, which means divided, and people everywhere are angry, or we are happy to see those other people so unhappy.

Most of us, including me, have to be careful with opinions when we meet with friends and relatives. Some Christmas and Thanksgiving and similar family meetings can be like minefields. Once, I interrupted a family argument and told everyone involved that we were not going to talk about that. They listened, that time, and we didn’t have a big political brawl, but I’m not sure about the next time.

If you are wondering, the subject, ‘that time’ was Donald Trump. Someone brought up that name, and the two sides started raging. The family doesn’t seem to meet as often, during the year, since that almost-argument.

In the video below there is another argument: The people in this demonstration are Houthis, in the country of Yemen. They hate Israel and they attack ships sailing near their coast, in the Red Sea. They have strong opinions, and other people have opinions about them. I’m not taking sides here. I have opinions, just like you, but I want us to see that we live in a divided world where we are expected to take sides.

I’m sure that the opinions shown in the video would never fit in a coffee break or a family reunion, if people had different opinions about the subject. Our polarization is made worse by the power of the Internet. It’s harder to ignore issues that are made easily visible to us. The whole world is now our information territory.

We now have experts who are warning that we are heading for a social disaster, if we can’t learn to get along:

This is serious, and things could get much worse..

I am writing as a Christian, and I can see that the word “forgive” just never comes up in angry conversations, and those conversations seem to be happening everywhere and often.

There are some words in the Bible that most of us ignore, and I am guilty of this. Do you know the famous words in the “Lord’s Prayer”? The opening words are “Our Father who art in Heaven …”  We know those words, but who remembers these words? “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

One of the most basic spiritual practices for Christians is supposed to be forgiving. People who ask God to forgive them are supposed to forgive their enemies and the other people who offend them.

You can find the Lord’s Prayer in the Bible book of Matthew 6, verses nine to thirteen. The words that come right after that famous prayer are also easy to ignore:

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (verses 14 and 15)

That is clear. Imagine if God does not forgive us; in Christian beliefs, we are lost and we have no hope, in that condition. That’s a radical statement and it was spoken by the person of Jesus.

There may be some complicated theology that explains the thinking behind those words, but I know one explanation: 

We don’t get what we don’t want.

So, what is your spiritual economy? What do you give and receive? And what is your currency? Do you forgive? We can only forgive people who are offenders.

The alternative is to be angry and pay back the offenders. We can give them what they deserve and that might feel good, too, or we can go against the logical order, and forgive them when they are wrong. 

I believe that if we don’t forgive, we won’t ask for forgiveness when we are wrong. We won’t see a reason to take what we don’t give. That will not be a currency in our spiritual economy. As our world becomes more divided and polarized, and people become less forgiving, we need to get our spiritual economy in order.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, although you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! In everything, treat others as you would want them to treat you, for this fulfills the law and the prophets. (Matthew 7: 7 to 12)

Watch: This my Christian Friends is What Forgiveness Looks Like