Man's Forgiveness vs God's

The other day I saw in the news that Jan Ullrich, who won the Tour de France in 1997 and won 2 olympic medals in 2000, admitted to blood doping. I was never a huge Ullrich fan, though the rivalry with Lance Armstrong was interesting.

When I first saw this story, my reaction was, "Well, it's way too late for him to have any sort of goodwill or redemption with the public." Like Lance, he denied doping vehemently for so long. When he retired in 2007, he claimed to "have never cheated as a cyclist."

Oddly enough, my reaction is much like that of the German Olympic Sports Confederation president: 

"This is too little, too late. Jan Ullrich had his chance for a creditable admission a couple of years ago and he missed it"

 As I thought about this, I realized that from a human standpoint there were a few things missing from the confessions of both Lance and Ullrich:

• they both confessed, admitted to doping, but never really asked for forgiveness
• They did not show remorse
• it was way too late.

And then I thought how great it is that God's forgiveness does not work like society's.
1. It does not come with a statute of limitations. The thief on the cross waited until he was already dying. 

2. It is not limited in what it can accept. No crime is too big. David was forgiven of murdering the husband of the woman he had committed adultery with. (Though in his case there was true remorse and repentence. Psalm 51).
Jesus instructs us to emulate this level of forgiveness, forgiving seventy times seven. (Matthew 18:22). The passage following this is that of the ungrateful servant, who is forgiven a debt of several million dollars and then in turn will not forgive someone who owes him thousands, and rather mercilessly throws him in jail.


3. Complete redemption and restoration to former position is possible. 
Again we have the example of David who remains king and is not removed. and Peter who denies Christ and is restored.

It is possible that we can hope for this level of forgiveness between individual Christians - by the grace of God. And within the church for those who fall.
But it really is unrealistic to expect this in the world of sports or politics or society in general. Whence OJ Simpson, John Edwards, Nixon (counterpoint: Charles Colson) . . .

I'm just thankful that God's ways are higher than ours and his forgiveness is always available and certain. It's never too late to ask!