Easy/Hard

In his latest post, Dan asks, "Just how hard is it to be saved?"

It reminded me of this passage from my novel Black Dog Man:

Walter looked him in the eyes. “Do you believe,” he asked, “that God can forgive anything?”

“Sure.”

“No, for real. God can forgive someone no matter what they do?”

“Seriously, yes.”

“It’s that easy?”

“It’s easy for God to forgive, I think. It’s hard sometimes for us to receive forgiveness.”

“But that’s not fair,” Walter said.

“What do you mean?”

“We go through the hard work of guilt and feeling ashamed and worrying about being forgiven and measuring up, but he just snaps his fingers and forgives us? Shouldn’t it be hard to forgive the bad sins?”

“Well, there is that thing Jesus did on the cross.”

“Yes,” Walter said, looking across the hall at the blank wall. In an instant he seemed afflicted by an immeasurable pain. It was more a thought than a question, really, but he said, “So forgiveness isn’t easy.”

“No,” David agreed, feeling Walter’s sadness. “In that sense, it’s not easy at all.”

My answer in the thread at Dan's place begins: "The answer is that it's not hard at all, and it's also as hard as one sinless life and crucifixion."