A new approach to learning, called Common Core, is all the conversation in these parts of late. Plenty of people line up on either pro or con side of the learning method, and I have no intention of wasting precious blog space debating its effectiveness. One thing Andrea and I learned last night while helping Bekah study for a math test, however, is that students do not learn math today the way we learned it in our day. Common Core seems UNCOMMON to our core way of thinking.

As I went to bed last night, I was thinking about how Bekah’s math is like a Biblical teaching God has been dealing with me about over the last four months. God has an UNCOMMON way of doing math as well.

One day after Jesus had finished teaching His disciples about restoration and forgiveness, Peter came to Jesus and asked, “How many times shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Seven times?” Peter was not trying to solve a mathematical word problem, but rather find God’s bottom line in a grace he wished he was not required to extend. He thought maybe after seven extensions of forgiveness, he would no longer be required to forgive.

Jesus replied with UNCOMMON CORE math. “I tell you, not as many as seven, but 70 times seven.” Jesus was not, however, telling Peter that he only had to forgive his brother 490 times, he was teaching him that forgiveness is perpetual. Jesus followed up with a parable about forgiveness in which the main point is that since we have and do daily freely receive forgiveness from God, we also should daily freely forgive others who have hurt us.

One difficult lesson is that if I want to be a stickler about Jesus’ math and only forgive 490 times, then that number is per person, per offense, per day. Forgiveness is a CHOICE and I choose every day to forgive the same offense over and over. Every time the devil brings the hurt to my attention, I heal the hurt by choosing to forgive. Some days I do better on the test than others, but eventually I pray I become a master as Jesus’ lesson on forgiveness and UNCOMMON CORE.

What past hurts are you holding? Let me encourage you to CHOOSE forgiveness… perpetually…daily… until the hurt is not longer a hurt. Eventually the devil will get the message and stop wasting his time bringing the hurt to your attention.

(The conversation between Jesus and Peter and the ensuing parable mentioned above can be found in Matthew 18:15-35.)