Friday, August 2, 2013

Forgiveness

In my experience in teaching about emotions, this subject of forgiveness is the one that provokes heated discussions. Most people are not ready to forgive even those who called themselves Christians. (Christians are to be Christ-like and HE forgave the whole humanity at the cross. I find it very difficult to see Christians carrying a grudge. They have forgotten how much they have been forgiven by the Son of God.) Why the difficulty when it comes to this subject? There are many reasons and I'll mention a few along the "way". But first, let me say that what I hear the most in my chats is: "I don't feel like forgiving" or "She/he doesn't deserve it". However, when we do not forgive someone the damage is to us and not to the offender. We are the ones in the hands of hatred, resentment, and revenge. We are the ones with the dark soul.

FORGIVENESS is a CHOICE. If we wait to "feel like" forgiving, it will never happen.Our flesh, our emotions are not built that way. We tend to carry the grudge rather than forgive the offender. We tend to lean toward revenge instead of forgiving. We tend to shout out the offense rather than keep it quiet. We want people to know how bad someone is so if we forgive the offender we feel we are making the person looks good.

First of all, to forgive doesn't mean I will forget what happened. We tend to say, "I can forgive but I can't forget." And that's true. We won't forget. We have been equipped with a great brain with a lot of storage space. However, the key is how do we remember the offense. Do we cry when we remember it? Healing is not complete. Do we get angry when we remember it? Forgiveness has not taken place. One of the indications that you have forgiven is that when you remember it, you realize you've grown; there is new knowledge and you've matured in that area. You have learned something. You may use your experience to help others overcome similar situations and you use it wisely with compassion and love. You don't bad-mouth the person when you narrate it to teach because you don't want to damage the person you have forgiven. You care that much.

Forgiveness is also a response from having been forgiven. In other words, we have received mercy so we have mercy on others. We don’t forgive because the offender deserves it; instead we forgive someone who does not deserve it… very much like us when we came to Jesus. By forgiving the offense, we accept that we are not perfect either and therefore we exercise mercy. This is one of the reasons why we don't want to forgive someone who comes to us and asks for forgiveness. In order to accept the apology, we'd have to recognize we did something that cause others to feel or think bad about us and we can't accept that. We can't face the fact that we failed to excel; that we are NOT perfect. Is like screaming, "How dare you to think that about me?" It just goes to show that we can't handle the truth. So, we rather ignore it and say, "there is nothing to forgive" or totally take a very defensive stand trying to make the other person see the wrongness in the apology. Yes, totally irrational but we do it.

To carry a grudge is dangerous to our health as there is no peace in our soul and it may provoke anxiety. Any time we see the offender we resent they are going about his/her life like nothing happened while we are consumed by the hatred. To forgive is to surrender. When we don’t forgive we are bonded to the person that hurt us. We might be thinking, “Why let him/her go?” And that’s precisely the problem! While we don’t forgive, we will stay "hooked" to that person that hurt us. But when we forgive, we let the person go from our lives but not from God. We must trust that God will treat that other person with justice, equity and mercy, something that we cannot do.

We don't forgive so that the other person will change.We forgive to be at peace with ourselves and God. When you are the one apologizing, you have to be prepared that the person may not even accept your apology and that's fine. You do the part of confessing your offense and you are released from your part on the conflict. It does require humility to accept that we thought or said something bad about someone or actually wronged the person. We have to let the pride down and as we were bold enough to say negative things about someone, to face up and admit we did wrong. The person accepting the apology has to also put aside the pride and accept he/she is not perfect. The opposite would be to humiliate the offender with throwing in his/her face all the hurt caused by the offense. Just accept the apology and forgive without any "but you did....". That is not easy as we will like to make it clear to the offender, before we forgive, how bad it was, how much damage he/she caused us. That's why we can't forgive on our own strength. We need God's grace to forgive the offense without any "but...".

Don't expect that when you forgive someone the hurt will immediately cease. Forgiveness comes first and is immediately; at the moment. Healing comes much slower but it can't start without taking that first step.

Something I get asked a lot is:
How do I know if I have truly forgiven my offender?
My answer is with another question. Ask yourself, Can I pray blessings over this person and be happy he/she is doing great in life?" or, "Can I think of good things about and for this person?

Does it get easy with time? I think so. I think that as you practice forgiveness with God's strength you learn how good it feels. You realize that is not worthy going through life with resentment in your heart. You learn. You grow. You mature. Will it hurt less? Not really, as each conflict is different and you still have a heart that's sensible. However, you'll experience love, HIS love, like never before.

For those who called themselves Christians, I ask them,
If God does not punish us according to our sins, if He has forgiven us and does not remember our sins, but instead delights in forgiving us, shouldn’t we do the same and forgive our brethen?
In Micah 6:8 we read,
He has showed you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
There is no way you can do all three and go through life without forgiving others or accepting forgiveness in your life.

Whenever you choose to forgive those who have hurt you, you show God how much you appreciate his gift of forgiveness to you. And that ALWAYS pleases HIM!