Thomas Browne said that "the vices we scoff at in others laugh at us from within ourselves." More than any other relational failure this is true of hurt and vengeance.

When the great nineteenth-century Spanish General, Ramon Narvaez, lay dying in Madrid, a priest was called in to give him last rites. "Have you forgiven your enemies?" the padre asked.

"Father," confessed Narvaez, "I have no enemies. I shot them all."

Too often that is the story of our lives, and Jesus knows it. Lewis Smedes wrote a book we can hardly step around when thinking about Jesus' words in Matthew 18. Smedes' book is called Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve (HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), and in it he wrestles with us about the commonplace pains we experience in our relationship. One of his stori…