²¹ Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” ²² Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. (Matthew 18:21-22)

So, if you are anything like me (God forbid) forgiving someone once can be hard. Peter ask Jesus how many times the disciples should forgive a brother, seven times? Jesus said no, seventy times seven. So 490 times? No. In this time and culture seventy times seven was synonymous with infinity. So He was telling His disciples to always practice forgiveness.

What has God’s math been for you?

I know God has to forgive me daily. I mess things up, do things wrong, say things wrong and generally fail from a faith standpoint. I have to keep reminding myself that God forgives me no matter how messy my life may be. Does He want me to learn from my mistakes and not continue sinning? Of course. But we are human and failure is written into our DNA, just like divinity is written there.

Luckily, God’s math is not our math. He looks at our lives in the grander scheme of things and knows where we are headed before we go. Meaning, as followers, He is forgiving us even before we ask. But we should always ask. Always be cognizant of our wrongs. They should be ever before us so that at some point we actually learn from them and stop.

Our human math may not add up, especially around forgiveness. But luckily God’s math is not our math.