Someone I trusted deeply betrayed me. I'm furious and I don't know if I can forgive.

“But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.”

Joseph said these words to the brothers who had sold him into slavery. He had every right to be bitter: he had spent years imprisoned because of their betrayal. But he could see, in hindsight, that God had been working through even the worst of what was done to him. His forgiveness was not naive; it was costly and took years to arrive.

“Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”

Jesus gives a number so large it becomes a concept rather than a count. He is not setting a quota but describing a posture: forgiveness is not a transaction you complete once, but a direction you keep moving in. The parable that follows makes clear that our willingness to forgive is connected to our understanding of how much we ourselves have been forgiven.