Forgiveness. It's probably the
toughest lesson that
I have ever had to learn. It went against the grain of everything
inside me.
I did not take on the lessons of forgiveness willingly. I did it, quite
simply, out of self-preservation. Resentment was eating me alive and
ruining my life.
Also, I claimed to be a Christian but I knew that my resentment wasn't
pleasing to God. Jesus said that we must forgive others. He didn't make
it optional. His Word states quite clearly that if we do not forgive
people for their wrongs against us, then we will not be forgiven for
our wrongs against them.
"Matthew 6:15: But if you do
not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses."
Betrayal by friends or family
was the worst. Scorching pain seared my heart.
Next the anger rushed in. Fury! How dare they do
that to me! And I wanted to hurt them just as viciously as
they had hurt me. Eventually, the pain, anger and disillusionment
hardened into bitterness.
Jesus understood the deadly effects that unforgiveness would have on
us. He knew that my bitterness hurt no one but myself. It took away my
joy in living. It made me ungrateful. It blinded me to all the good
around me. It ate away at me physically and mentally.
So one of the reasons that Jesus insisted that I learn to forgive was
to spare me from the inevitable results of my resentment.
But I didn't want to forgive! I wanted to get even. Nevertheless, I
recognized that I had to attempt to forgive simply because Jesus gave
me no option.
My first halting steps in that direction went something like this,
"Okay, God. You said 'vengeance is mine; I will
repay.' So I will really work at letting my resentment
go--and I'm going to hold you to your promise to repay that person for
me."
That was a rather comforting thought for a while. So I began to turn my
unforgiveness over to God, only because I figured He would be a lot
better at dealing out the paybacks than I could ever be.
But then one day another thought crossed my mind. "If I hold God to his
promise to pay them back, then that means that other people whom I have
hurt can hold God to his promise to pay me back."
Aha!
I was beginning to get an inkling of how this forgiveness business
really works. Now I prayed, "God, I don't want the justice due me for
all the people I've hurt by my selfishness and thoughtlessness. And
there have been times when I have deliberately wounded people. I don't
want you to pay me back as I deserve. I want mercy. I want to be
forgiven."
Then Jesus' words really started to make sense to me. It was logical
and right that if I wanted mercy and forgiveness for the wrongs I'd
done to other people, then I had to grant the people who had wronged me
mercy and forgiveness.
My new prayer lacked grace, but it was honest: "God, please don't give
them what they deserve. Because I certainly don't want what I deserve!"
But how do you forgive someone when the bitterness still festers?
I turned back to the Bible for answers. Jesus never told us to do
anything without telling us how to do it. In this case I found the same
instructions in three places in the New Testament: Matthew 5:44, Luke
6:28 and Romans 12:14: "Bless those who curse you, and pray for those
who despitefully use you."
So I started praying for those people that my heart still really wanted
to see fried to cinders. Through gritted teeth I prayed that God would
bless them, that he would heal them, that he would help them
financially, that he would bless their marriages and families....
Everything that I wanted for myself, I prayed for them. And I felt as
though I were lying through my eye teeth to God.
Nevertheless, that is what He said to do, so I continued to do it. And
a really strange thing began to happen. After several days of praying
that way, I began to realize that I really did want God to bless them.
I began to see some of the things in their lives that caused them to
act hatefully toward me. I saw insecurity, defensiveness, fear, their
own bitterness and unhappiness, low self-esteem--problems that I, too,
had battled for much of my life. I truly began to
feel compassion for them, and my prayers for their well-being became
genuine.
Very gradually, I noticed a change occurring in me. Gentleness,
understanding, compassion--and yes, mercy, began to seep into my heart
and my outlook on life. As St. Paul put it, the Fruits of the
Spirit began to develop in me. As I had tried to obey Christ, His
Spirit began working in me almost imperceptibly, day by day
transforming my very character.
And then one day, I ran across the verses in the Bible again that say
that whatever we forgive on earth will be forgiven in Heaven, and
whatever we don't forgive will not be forgiven in Heaven. I realized
that I don't have the power to
forgive any sin EXCEPT the ones that have been committed against me
personally. And if I will ask God not to hold a single person who has
hurt me accountable for those actions, then I could wipe their slates
clean on my account.
The revelation almost took my breath away. What awesome power God has
given us -- the power to eternally forgive sins !!!!!
From that day on, I can now pray, "forgive us our debts as we forgive
our debtors" without a trace of guilt about any lingering feelings of
unforgiveness on my part. Because when God answers my prayer to forgive
them, then any lingering feelings of unforgiveness I may feel are just
that.... fickle feelings.
It has taken several years of practicing forgiveness for it to really
become an integral part of who I am. But the rewards are greater than I
could have imagined.
I no longer have to go through agonizing weeks of praying through
gritted teeth when someone hurts me now. Misunderstandings and hurt are
a normal part of life. Almost automatically I simply turn it over to
Jesus and let it go.
I listened to a tape on forgiveness several years ago that had a
profound impact on me. It said:
"Because I will need
forgiveness tomorrow,
I choose to forgive today."
