Forgiveness - Review Thus Far

 

Good Morning Everyone,

I hope you enjoyed your Memorial Day holiday.  I know I did.  This week, we will wrap up the forgiveness series, I want to provide a general summary of the series thus far.  A few people have asked for this and so I provide it today.  I hope it is helpful.

Why Learn to Forgive? – The Selfish Reasons

•   Better health – BP, cholesterol, immune response, stress

•   Better relationships – with God, with yourself, and with others

•   “You reap what you sow”  -  What fills your heart and actions is what comes back to you

•   Take power back – “Forgiveness does not change your past, but it enlarges your future”

Defintions: What Forgiveness is NOT. . .

Approval of what was done

Excuse or justification of what was done

Minimization of what was done (Denial of, blindness to, not treating seriously, pretending not to be hurt)

Removal of consequences for what was done

Reconciliation (which requires two parties)

Restoration of relationship or trust

Justice

Healing

What Forgiveness IS. . .

•   Awareness of what was done

•   It is a choice (with or without feeling)

•   Letting go of the right to punish or otherwise use the offense against the offender

•   A process

•   An act of trust in God’s justice

•   A participation in the merciful and gracious character of God

•   Choosing NOT to be a victim any longer

Why Should I Forgive!?

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.     
- Lewis Smedes

See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

Hebrews 12:15

Some Qualifiers. . .

•   The “steps” don’t always occur in order

•   The “steps” often have to be repeated, sometimes many times

•   It is not always easy to know when you’re done

•   It is very difficult work

Components of Forgiveness

•   Intentional Decision

•   (Re)discovering humanity

•    Letting Go of Notion of Punishment/Restitution

•   Change your behavior towards the offender

•   Pray for the offender

•   Say the Words

Symptoms That Forgiveness Hasn’t Happened

•   You have a hard time speaking their name

•   You hear that something good has happened to them and you aren’t happy for them

•   You are unable to think about them separate from what they did

•   You find yourself blaming them for things that are happening to you now

•   You wish they were “just gone.”

Resources for Forgiving

•   Setting Boundaries

•   Writing/Journaling

•   Discipline of Gratitude

•   Naming/Confessing the “bitter root”

•   Asking God for help

•   “Reframing” the situation (Romans12:1-2)

•   Praying for good to come to the person

 

Signs that you’re on the Path

•   Awareness of the need to forgive

•   Decision to forgive

•   Changes in feelings about the person

•   Able to say the words out loud

•   You can pray for the blessing of this person

•   You experience at least some measure of gratitude for the experience

Imagine. . .

•   Not carrying the bitterness around anymore

•   That “foothold” is no longer available in your heart

•   The energy expended in relation to the offense being used positively

•   “bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” FALLING AWAY POWERLESS

Prayer:  Lord help us to make forgiveness a regular part of our life.  Heal our hearts.  Clear our minds of unhelpful scripts.  Give us eyes to see people the way you do.  Amen.

Prayer Focus:  Pray for families with people in the military.

Song:  Still - Steven Curtis Chapman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNMTQB7DwA4 

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Prayer and Forgiveness

Matthew 5:43-48, CEB - “You have heard that it was said, You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.  But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who harass you  so that you will be acting as children of your Father who is in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both the evil and the good and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same?  And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same?  Therefore, just as your heavenly Father is complete in showing love to everyone, so also you must be complete.

 

                We talked about several components of the forgiveness process thus far.  Make the decision/intention to forgive.  (Re)discover the humanity of the offender.  Let go of the notion of punishing the offender or getting revenge.  Act honorably towards the offender.  All of these components are hard work.  As Gandhi says, “forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.”

                Today we add another hard component to the process.  Pray for those who hurt you.  I waited until now to list this one because praying for the offender affirms and works with all the components we’ve listed so far.  Praying for God for the good of the other reinforces our intention to forgive and it brings to the forefront that they are a human being in need of prayer just like us.  It allows us to turn our hearts toward and trust God to bring resolution and justice.  This helps us let go of the need for us to punish or exact revenge.  And obviously, it is the honorable and loving thing to do as Jesus instructs us in the passage above. 

                Instead of a question today and sentence prayer, I’d like to suggest an exercise in praying/meditating for the wellness of others, including our enemies.  Here’s the basic pattern for this.

1)      Find a quiet place where you are unlikely to be disturbed for a few minutes, 

2)      Sit in a comfortable place and posture, but not so comfortable you would be likely to fall asleep.

3)      Take 2-3 long slow breaths, releasing any tension.

4)      Picture Jesus in the room with you and connect with His wishes for you to experience peace, love, forgiveness, and joy.  Stay with this for at least a minute or two.

5)      Picture others you know and love in the room with you and Jesus.  Imagine Jesus’s love and blessing flowing to them as well.  Join Jesus in His sending of good things to the others in the room.

6)      Now allow others who you find it difficult to pray for in the room too.  Connect with the fact that they, like you, are in need of all the blessings God gives. 

7)      Join Jesus and others in sending love, peace, joy, and ease to them as much as you are able.

 

If you find this hard, below is a link to guided meditation prayer that leads you through the same basic pattern.  Just listen and follow the instructions.

 

Prayer Focus:  Say a prayer for the family of the young man responsible for shooting his grandmother and the children and teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

 

Song:  Standing in the Need of Prayer – John Clayton and Hank Jones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afJV0jZwXxM

The Sacred “Pause Button”

Deuteronomy 30:19-20a, CEB -  I call heaven and earth as my witnesses against you right now: I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you. Now choose life—so that you and your descendants will live—by loving the Lord your God, by obeying his voice, and by clinging to him.

 

“Between Stimulus and Response There Is a Space. In That Space Is Our Power To Choose Our Response”                                  Stephen Covey, quoting an unknown author

 

                When I was a teenager, the primary way to listen to audio recordings (music, lectures, etc) was cassette tape.  I actually still have a cassette player and several cassettes.  Over the years, I had several players and one of the common problems I had with them is that eventually, the “pause” button would break.  Sometimes, I think we have the same challenge with our actions.  Our pause button is either broken or we are not even aware that we have the ability to pause before reacting to a situation. 

Stephen Covey, in his many writings, made the above quote popular, though he claimed that he did not author the wisdom.  In any case, it is a fact.  Whatever happens to us, we have a choice as to how we act in response.  I have caught myself using the phrase, “it was just an automatic reaction,” when trying to justify the way I acted.  The reality is that I made a choice to act though it was a unaware choice. 

The remedy for this is (re)discovering our “pause” button.  When we are “triggered,” by something someone does, we can push pause, by taking a long intention breath.  This gives us some space to consider how we will act (or not act as the case may be) as we respond to the stimulus.  This is where the scripture above comes into play.  We can choose blessings or curses.  We can choose in alignment with the values we have learned from our faith and wisdom traditions.  We can take a moment to remember our connection to God’s Spirit and allow ourselves to be guided by divine image placed in us by God. 

This has implications for the forgiveness process.  Hurts that we have experienced in the past tend to replay in our mind every time we remember the offense.  We relive the hurt as we “replay the tape” in our head once again.  The forgiveness process calls for pushing “pause” on these old recordings and thus, creating the space to make a more life-giving choice.  Acting in life-affirming ways towards those who have hurt us begins to erase those old tapes over time.  We most likely will always remember the offense, but the event will lose it’s power to trigger us.  We become more and more free.

 

Question:  Are there some old but familiar recordings that you need to “push pause” on in order to create space for a new response?

 

Prayer:  God, thank you for the gift of choice.  Keep this gift ever before us in the moments/spaces where we choose between blessings and curses.  Help us discern and act in alignment with the divine image You have placed within us.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for school-age children and school personnel who are finishing up another school year in the shadow of yet another mass school shooting.

 

Song:  Choose Life – Big Tent Revival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX4fC4WFCIU

Responding to Uvalde

 

We will return to our series on forgiveness tomorrow, but today’s reflection is a response to what happened in Texas yesterday.

 

Proverbs 31:8, CEB - Speak out on behalf of the voiceless, and for the rights of all who are vulnerable.

 

Of course, our prayers are with them.  Our thoughts have been with them since the moment we heard.  Once again, we are horrified at the deaths of at least 19 children and 2 adults in Uvalde, Texas at Robb Elementary School.  But our “thoughts and prayers” ARE NOT ENOUGH! This is the 30^th K-12 school shooting in the US this year and it’s only May! 

I do have to admit that I’m not sure what the answers are but I’m quite sure we are long past the time for shrugging our shoulders and simply saying, “we don’t know how to fix this.”  We have to figure this out.  I think of at least 19 homes in Texas where families are gathering wondering why their precious child was shot to death at school – a place where we should be able to assume is a safe place for children to be.  In at least 2 more homes, families cannot fathom how working at a school with 7-9 year-olds has become a life-risking endeavor. 

When terrorists killed people on September 11, 2001 in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, we made major changes in almost every area of life to make sure nothing like that ever happened again.  And in the 20+ years since that atrocity, nothing like that has happened again.  Can this moment be the moment when we, together, decide, that once again, we will do EVERYTHING WE CAN THINK OF to prevent another child, teacher, or school worker is not killed in our schools. 

Our call as people of faith is to defend those who cannot defend themselves.  Please pray for the families of all the victims of Texas.  But while you’re doing that, pray to be given at AT LEAST ONE SPECIFIC ACTION YOU CAN TAKE to be part of the solution. 

 

Question:  How many more children and school workers must die before we all decide that it is enough?

 

Prayer:  God, our hearts break for the whole Uvalde Texas community and so many others across our country that have been devastated by the murder of children, teachers, and school workers.  We know Your heart breaks as well.  Help us know what specific steps we can take to be part of stopping this ongoing carnage.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for and Contact our elected officials at every level of government to come together to begin to address gun violence in our schools and places of worship.

 

Song:  The song today was written by Steven Curtis Chapman about his daughter.  The song took on a completely different significance when the daughter that he wrote the song about was accidently killed.  It was years before Chapman could sing the song again.  That’s the kind of place of grief that too many families are experiencing right now.     

Cinderella – Steven Curtis Chapamn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doeOSXQ_pSw

No Footholds

 

Ephesians 4:27, 29-32, The Message - Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.

Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.

Don’t grieve God. Don’t break his heart. His Holy Spirit, moving and breathing in you, is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for himself. Don’t take such a gift for granted.

Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you

 

                I like hiking/climbing up mountains.  Living in Florida, I don’t get to do it as often as I’d like, but even so, I’ve done enough of it that some friends have given me the nickname, “mountain goat.”  One thing I’ve learned about climbing mountains is that, if you are going to get to the top, you need footholds.  Those holes and ledges on the mountain are what give you the leverage to go higher.

                The apostle Paul uses this foothold image to show how evil can rise up within us if we allow it.  We provide footholds for “the devil” when we let our anger drive our actions towards vengeance. As soon as we return offense for offense, we make it all that much easier for those offenses to multiply.  The danger is that, eventually, vengeance consumes us. 

                This is why controlling how we act when others hurt us is such an important component of the forgiveness process.  It’s so tempting sometimes to return evil for evil, but finding a way to act honorably towards those who hurt us can deny the expansion of the offense in our hearts and in our relationships.  God’s Spirit within us can help us with this difficult task, but the choice is ours.  Furthermore, when we choose to give footholds to negativity and malice, the Spirit’s influence on us is diminished.  When that happens, even more opportunity for the devil is created. 

                The forgiveness practice and process denies these footholds by refusing to return offense for offense.  This can strengthen the influence of the Spirit in us and help us move toward healing, freedom, and wholeness.  It helps us have a heart at peace instead of a heart at war.  We become more like the God who has refused to return our rebellion and offense with the like.  We have been forgiven and so we in turn, commit ourselves to forgiving. Tomorrow, we will talk about a technique that can help us react more honorably when we are tempted to create a foothold for evil.

 

Question:  Can you think of a situation that got worse because of the rash way in which you reacted?  What would that situation have looked like if you had acted more honorably?

 

Prayer:  God, help us be aware of the footholds we have given to negativity, resentment, and vengeance in our heart and relationships.  Show us the honorable path forward.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who are falling behind on their bills because of the changing economic conditions.

 

Song:  Brandon Heath - The Light In Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdAKabU3nOM

Letting God Do the God Things

 

Romans 12:17-19, The Message - Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”

 

The goal of forgiveness is healing and freedom – for you and for your relationships.  We keep repeating this because it’s important to keep in mind when you are working the forgiveness process.  If the benefits of healing and freedom for you is the goal, then it makes sense that doing things that do not promote healing and freedom would be counterproductive.  This is why revenge/payback never accomplishes the goal.  Adding more hurt/punishment/negativity to the equation pushes healing and freedom further away. 

This is why God instructs us, “I’ll take care of that.”  God wants our healing and freedom as well, so God pleads with us to not self-sabotage the forgiveness process with revenge.  Instead, God instructs us to replace those vengeful fantasies and actions with actions that promote healing and freedom.  Look for beauty in the other, which we talked about last week when we discussed rediscovering the humanity/commonality of the offender.  Work on making peace with the offender and promoting peace in your own heart.  Leave judgement and justice, which are God activities to God. 

 

Questions:  What do you want more of in your heart and your relationships? What would it look like for you to do more of that and less of what you don’t want in your heart and relationships?

 

Prayer:  Lord,  show me the current state of my heart.  Where there is negativity and hopes for revenge, help me replace them with thoughts and actions that promote peace, healing, and freedom.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the victims and families of the multiple acts of mass violence in our country in the last week.

 

Video:  Instead of a song today, I’m sharing a video about looking at the content of our heart.  I hope you are helped by it as I was.

What Is A Heart At War? - Wilderness Therapy at Anasazi Foundation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o3LLDJUQhs          

Components of Forgiveness – You Gotta Want It

 

Matthew 13:15, CEB - For this people’s senses have become calloused, and they’ve become hard of hearing, and they’ve shut their eyes so that they won’t see with their eyes or hear with their ears or understand with their minds, and change their hearts and lives that I may heal them.

 

                This seems abundantly obvious, but in order to forgive someone, you have want to forgive.  Quite often, this is a serious challenge.  In a very real way, refusing to forgive someone feels right.  After all, they did wrong/hurtful.  It is even reasonable to hold on to offense in the presence of wrong.  Many times, we do not want to forgive. And if you do not want to forgive, you will not forgive.  The will to forgive is an essential component of forgiveness. 

                But if we don’t have the will to forgive, how do we develop it?  We’ve talked about some the ways we do this in previous devotionals in this series on forgiveness.  One potential mind-changing realization is that forgiveness is good for us.   There are physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and relational benefits when we learn to forgive.  When we become convinced that forgiveness will help us in all these ways, our reluctance to forgive can be weakened.

                While I was getting my Master’s degree, I was part of a Clinical Pastoral Education(CPE) internship working as a Chaplain in a children’s hospital for a summer.  Part of the program was weekly counseling sessions with my supervisor.  In one of these sessions, my counselor and I were discussing a coping mechanism that I had when I encountered intense feelings of grief.  I expressed both a desire to change and a seeming powerlessness to do so.  My supervisor said something to me at that moment that I will never forget; “Eric, you will never change that defense mechanism until the pain of keeping it in place exceeds the pain you are avoiding.” She was right.  Later that summer, I realized my defense mechanism was actually causing me more pain than engaging the grief I encountered in my work in the hospital.  This realization helped me gain the will to change my approach. 

                Part of wanting to forgive is acknowledging the pain that not forgiving is causing us.  It actually the flip-side of looking at the benefits of forgiveness. We look at how we are suffering because we have not been willing to forgive.  The toxicity of unforgiveness has a cumulative effect on us just as the benefits of forgiveness bring cumulative benefits to our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and relational health.  If examining the benefits of forgiveness is not enough to move the needle of your will towards wanting to forgive, consider the costs to continuing in unforgiveness.

 

Questions:  Consider an offense that, at this point, you have not been able to forgive.  Forgetting about the offender for a moment, what would it look like for you physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and socially for you to forgive the offense?  What is it costing you not to forgive?

 

Prayer:  Give us a clear picture of what it is costing us to continue in unforgiveness Lord.  Show us a vision for what life could be like if we could get free of the hurts of the past. Heal us Great Physician. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who are being diagnosed with COVID this week as cases are rising again.

 

Song:  Don’t Let Your Heart Be Hardened – Petra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWNh1IyFdvM

The Components of Forgiveness – Part 1 – Rediscovering Common Humanity

 

I’m back from vacation.  Thanks for allowing me the chance to take a breather.  I know you didn’t have a choice in the matter, but I thank you anyway. 😉

 

Philippians 2:5-8, The Message - Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

 

Breaking how to forgive down into steps would be a little misleading.  The “steps” of forgiveness rarely occur in any specific order.  Sometimes, the steps have to be repeated.  Using a mental checklist for these would usually bring frustration.  So instead, I prefer to talk about the components of forgiveness.  When you are able to forgive someone, these components are part of the process.  Working to bring all of these components together is a better way to describe the practice.  Today we will talk about one of them – (re)discovering the common humanity of the offender.

When someone hurts us, there is a tendency to put them in a different category than ourselves.  Many times, this isn’t really a conscious thing but sometimes it is. A simple example is when I label someone “a jerk” (you can substitute you own preferred derogatory label here).  Implicit in me beginning to think of them as a jerk is that I, on the contrary, am NOT a jerk.  They are different from me.  I would not do what they have done, so I am not a jerk and they are.  I belong in a “better” category than that offender because I am not a jerk.

Putting someone in a lower category from myself has a name; the name is judgement.  I have judged my offender to be somehow less than myself.  Here’s where the problem comes in.  Judgement or categorizations of the value of other human beings is not an activity I am well suited to do.  After all, I am a human being.  I am biased at best.  This is why God says leave judgement to God.  God, unlike me, is well suited to make value judgements about human beings.  First, God IS in a higher category than us.  Second, God knows what it’s like to be a human because God become one named Jesus.  Jesus is fully God and fully human simultaneously.  God voluntarily put Godself in the same category as us. 

God perfectly models for us what this aspect of forgiveness looks like.  God discovers what it’s like to be a human being.  Instead of separating form us, God joins us.  An essential component of forgiveness is doing this same thing with our offender(s).  If we are able to be completely honest with ourselves, we have been “jerky” at times too.  Maybe it wasn’t exactly the same jerkiness that the other displayed, but it was jerkiness to be sure.  Maybe, in their same circumstances, we could have found ourselves doing the same thing they did.  After all, we are all human. 

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about another component of forgiveness, but for today, consider these questions.

 

Questions:  Do you have labels for people that have hurt you that you would not apply to yourself?  Have you considered how it might be possible, given different circumstances, for you to do the same thing that your offender did? 

 

Prayer:  Jesus, thank you for becoming human like me.  You had every right to remain separated from me, but you chose to join me instead.  Show me what it would look like to remove the separated label I have placed on people that have hurt me.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who do jobs everyday you could never see yourself doing.  Amen.

 

Song:  Judge Not – Bob Marley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viLaxu-uYlk

The Discipline of Forgiveness

 

1 Timothy 4:7-10, The Message - Exercise daily in God—no spiritual flabbiness, please! Workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever. You can count on this. Take it to heart. This is why we’ve thrown ourselves into this venture so totally. We’re banking on the living God, Savior of all men and women, especially believers.

 

I have mentioned in these devotions on forgiveness that I believe forgiveness should be known as one of the classical spiritual disciplines – the practices that we work at continuously to, over time, strengthen our spirit and faith.  Though forgiveness is not seen in any of the lists I’ve seen, I believe it should be.  Here’s my case.

                First, human relationships are chronically imperfect.  Even in the best relationships, mistakes can happen.  It is probable that, at any given time, we are either in need of someone else’s forgiveness or we are needing to forgive someone who has hurt us in some way.  Just as prayer (communication w/ God) is oxygen for a relationship with God to be maintained and grow, forgiveness is the salve that allows relationships to sustain the bumps and setbacks that invariably occur between humans.  Embracing forgiveness as something to be practiced continuously improves our emotional intelligence and relational toolbox. 

                In addition, you practice skills that you want to improve.  Lebron James has mastered his sport through grueling practice and repetition. The famous art that you see in museums were not the first paintings done by the now-renowned artists.  They often painted/practiced for decades before producing the masterpieces we now celebrate.  Most babies crawl before they walk.  If makes sense that if we are awkward at the art of forgiving, practicing it regularly would increase our forgiveness skill. 

                In all the spiritual disciplines I practice on a regular basis, all were awkward, if not downright difficult when I first tried them.  My first attempts at prayer were so unfocused and preoccupied with unimportant things.  My first attempts at meditation were laughable.  My mind would wander after only about ten seconds.  My first fast was over almost as soon as it started.  After years of regularly practicing these disciplines, they all now feel more natural and they yield much better results.  Regularly working at forgiveness brings the same kind of proficiency.  I think of the author and professor Everett Worthington.  He taught, studied, and practiced forgiveness for years before his mother was brutally assaulted and murdered during a home invasion.  It took a long time, but he was able to forgive the attacker and he attributes the possibility of forgiving such a heinous offense to his years of teaching and working at forgiveness before the tragedy occurred. 

                Finally, to become a more competent forgiver brings the possibility of more sustained spiritual health.  Just as a strong heart muscle, born of regular cardiovascular exercise, sustains our physical health and protects us from potential health risks, practicing forgiveness regularly in the smaller matters of life, increases our ability to forgive “bigger” offenses when the opportunity comes.  Instead of being spiritually crippled by the blindside of another, we are able to deal with the setback more skillfully and fruitfully.  Forgiveness is more helpful to us as a discipline than a once-in-a-while-when-we-need-it activity. 

 

Question:  Are you better able to forgive now than you were when you first became a Christian?  Why or why not?

 

Prayer:  God, it seems that humanity would keep you busy with having to forgive the seemingly infinite mistakes we commit against You.  Yet, You keep forgiving flawlessly every time it is necessary.  Help us develop that capacity as well as we seek to reflect Your image.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who live with chronic pain today.

 

Song:  This song doesn’t specifically talk about forgiveness, but it does talk about the value of repetitive experiences strengthening us. 

You Learn – Alanis Morrisette

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QbBbnnAr5A

Who Has the Power?

1 Peter 3:9-11, CEB - Don’t pay back evil for evil or insult for insult. Instead, give blessing in return. You were called to do this so that you might inherit a blessing. For those who want to love life and see good days should keep their tongue from evil speaking and their lips from speaking lies. They should shun evil and do good; seek peace and chase after it.

 

Forgiveness at it’s very least provides for more positive outcomes than the alternatives.  When I was younger, my policy was to forgive those who were sorry.  If they apologized (and I was convinced of their sincerity), I could forgive almost anything.  But I required an apology if I was going to forgive.  I think many people hold this policy.

But as I began to study forgiveness, I began to see the main problem with this approach.  If I wait for an apology in order to start the forgiveness process, I know for sure that there are things I will never forgive.  I know this because the people who would have given the apology are dead.  Obviously, barring some miraculous visitation, I will never get their apology.  So if I stick with this policy, forgiveness is impossible in those cases.  There are still other cases where the offender is alive, but it is highly unlikely that they will ever apologize.  In some of these cases, I know they have no remorse for what they did.  Perhaps, in other cases, the offender doesn’t even know they hurt me.  If I require an apology or at least remorse, then the offender has the power to start the forgiveness process, not me.

Here's another problem with withholding forgiveness.  It may feel powerful to “hold an offense” over someone or even nurse a grudge.  Negative emotion is powerful even if it is negative power.  However, holding the offense in our heart robs me of energy that could be used in a much more positive way.  If someone is not sorry for hurting me, me choosing not to forgive them is not hurting them; it’s hurting me.  I’m certainly not punishing the dead with my unforgiveness.  Further, even those who might be in some way punished by me holding the offense over them are punished along with myself.  That is adding injustice to injustice.

Choosing to forgive whether or not there is remorse is a decision to take back the power.   It is claiming the initiative to do something about that which has hurt me.  It is the decision to no longer be a victim.  It creates new options for moving beyond the hurts of the past and beginning anew.  If is a life-giving choice instead of the life-diminishing choice of holding a grudge.  It is a way to, as Peter says above, “inherit a blessing.”

 

Question:   Are there grudges that I am holding onto that are punishing me more than anyone else?

 

Prayer:  Lord, we confess that we sometimes struggle with letting go of the past for many different reasons.  No matter the reasons, help us see the positive options available to us by choosing to forgive as You do.   Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the victims of domestic violence today.

 

Song:  Forgiveness – Matthew West

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Lu5udXEZI

The Garden of Your Soul

 

Galatians 6:6-10, CEB - Those who are taught the word should share all good things with their teacher. Make no mistake, God is not mocked. A person will harvest what they plant.  Those who plant only for their own benefit will harvest devastation from their selfishness, but those who plant for the benefit of the Spirit will harvest eternal life from the Spirit. Let’s not get tired of doing good, because in time we’ll have a harvest if we don’t give up.  So then, let’s work for the good of all whenever we have an opportunity, and especially for those in the household of faith.

 

Questions:  What is planted in your spirit?  What is growing in your heart?  What seeds are in the soil of your relationships?

 

We began with the questions today because the scripture naturally leads to them without any explanation.  If virtues are planted in the spirit, fruitful virtue tends to bloom in one’s life.  If bitterness is growing in your heart, anger and resentment seem to creep into our motivations and actions.  If seeds of trust and gratitude is planted in relationships,     then those same blooms tend to multiply. 

Let’s apply this principle to forgiveness (if you haven’t already).  If you have truly received and embraced forgiveness for you own mistakes, that forgiveness planted in  your soul tends to make the “soil” of your soil more receptive to the possibility of you forgiving others.  It works the other way as well.  If your do the hard work of forgiving others, your heart is even more prepared to embrace forgiveness of others and God; it’s a more “natural” experience. If you want to forgive, work on embracing the truth that your have been forgiven.  If you want to expand your own experience of being forgiven, then work on forgiving others. 

Paul is ruthless on this principle.  You can’t fake the true condition of your heart, spirit, and mind.  What you plant there will determine what blossoms in your life, for better or for worse.  What you practice in your relationships will produce a natural result.   So back to the questions for the day.

 

Questions:  What is planted in your spirit?  What is growing in your heart?  What seeds are in the soil of your relationships?

 

Prayer:  Eternal God, from the beginning of our lives, your desire has been to plant your image and character in us.  Forgive us for the ways we have been uncooperative with your purpose.  We will strive from this moment to receive your goodness and let it take root in our heart.  May our capacity to receive and give forgiveness increase.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for God to bless all the mothers you know today.

 

Song:  You Gotta Reap What You Sow – Alberta Hunter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YKEPe4uY8E

Forgiving is Good for You. . .Really (Part 2)

Matthew 6:12-15, NASB - And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.  And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’ For if you forgive other people for their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive other people, then your Father will not forgive your offenses.

 

                We pick up today where we left off yesterday with the discussion of self-serving reasons that learning to forgive is good for you.  Yesterday we touched on the physical, relational, emotional, and mental benefits of the practice of forgiving. Today, we add the spiritual dimension.  Forgiving others is good for your relationship with God and refusing to forgive hinders your relationship with God.  However, the correlation doesn’t work the way many people think.  Many read the scripture above and take from that God withholds God’s forgiveness if we don’t forgive others.  In other words, God’s forgiveness is conditional.  That is NOT what this passage is saying.  Just to be clear – God’s forgiveness is NOT conditional.  Let’s take a closer look. 

There is a principle that has been demonstrated over and over and which all of us should recognize and begin to live into.  What you focus on, you get more of.  This extends to spiritual disciplines as well.  If you are angry much of the time, you will receive anger most of the time.  If you act in judgmental ways, you will find yourself being judged.  If you are free with your condemnation of others, you will find yourself being condemned.    The apostle Paul said it this way:

 

“Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.”                      Galatians 6:7-8

 

So, for a moment today, I encourage you to focus on your experience of being forgiven.  The reason for that is you need that experience as a basis to practice forgiving others.  In a surprising way that I hope you all have or will experience, the opposite is true as well.  As you practice forgiving others, your own experience of being forgiven deepens and expands.  That’s why Jesus, Paul, and forgiveness teachers in every tradition teach about the profound connection between forgiving and being forgiven.  One does not exist without the other. 

God forgives us first (Eph 4:32), then we begin to forgive others and ourselves. This leads to a deeper experience of God’s forgiveness. This empowers us to better be able to forgive others and ourselves.  The cycle repeats. The cycle repeats again.  Forgiveness grows in us and in the world.  That’s how it supposed to work.  Forgiveness is a conspiracy of God’s scandalous love.  It turns the Old Testament notion of “eye for an eye” upside down.  That’s why I call it a revolution – a forgiveness revolution.

However, the revolution goes nowhere without our participation, without our practice.  That’s why I consider forgiveness a spiritual discipline.  One aspect of a discipline is that you do it even when you don’t feel like it because, somewhere way deeper than your feelings, you know it’s good for you.  This conviction that it’s good for you grows as you do it – you begin to actually feel the benefits after you been doing it while.  This feeling reinforces and inspires you to move even deeper into the discipline – thus someone who couldn’t even run a mile at one time completes a marathon.  The practice of forgiveness is like that too.

But at first, if you’re like me, you really don’t want to do it and furthermore, it doesn’t seem like it would be good for you.   Even with the experience of BEING forgiven under your belt, turning around and forgiving others doesn’t seem attractive.  God can forgive because God is, well. . . God.  Ah, but let me plant a thought in your mind before I sign off until tomorrow. 

 

Question:  Remember a time when you knew that either God or someone else had forgiven you.  Connect with how that affected you physically, emotionally and spiritually.  To the extent you were able to make that connection, how are you now more ready to forgive others?

 

Prayer:  God, thank you for your forgiveness.  Help us begin to understand why you forgive so that we may begin to forgive as well. Amen

 

Song:  I’m Not Who I Was – Brandon Heath

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqj9ACL5fNQ

Forgiving is Good for You. . .Really! (Part 1)

 

Hebrews 12:15, CEB - Make sure that no one misses out on God’s grace. Make sure that no root of bitterness grows up that might cause trouble and pollute many people.

 

Proverbs 14:30a, NIV – “A heart at peace gives life to the body…”

 

                Many articles and books on forgiveness make a moral case for forgiveness.  While I agree that forgiveness is high on the list of morally upright practices, I’m much more interested in talking about why practicing forgiveness is good for the mental, emotional, relational, spiritual, and even physical health of the forgiver.  Further, I think people are much more motivated to look at a practice if they believe they will benefit from it in addition to it being the right thing to do.  Forgiveness is not just something we should do; it’s a practice we would want to do once we see the benefits.

Let’s start with mental and physical health.  Multiple scientific studies have found that people who adopt forgiveness as a regular practice have, on average, lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol, and better immune response.  They have lower stress and physical pain levels.  People who practice forgiveness have a lower risk for heart attacks, strokes, and even diabetes.  Also, people who DON’T forgive tend to have higher anxiety and higher rates of depression.  Learning to forgive has even helped victims of Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder ease their symptoms.  The interesting thing about this is forgiveness research is still in its early stages and we are constantly learning more about the physical and mental health benefits of forgiving.  But already, one thing is clear; forgiving is good for your body and mind.

Perhaps the most obvious benefits of learning to forgive are found in the emotional and relational aspects of our lives.  Forgiveness is an essential practice in long-term relationships because all of us are going to make mistakes sometimes.  Holding onto offenses saps our emotional energy and pushes us toward chronic resentment, even if we try to hide it.  We are robbed of potential happiness and joy to the extent that we can’t find a way to let go of painful episodes in our past caused by others.  Seething anger from one relationship tends to seep into other relationships, having a detrimental effect on others who were not even involved in the painful experience.  Over the course of a lifetime, living with unforgiveness can become the “root of bitterness” (from the Hebrews passage above) that becomes part of one’s identity and makes it hard for others to even be around such a person.  Learning the art and discipline of forgiveness can prevent such a destiny and bring health and wholeness to our feelings and relationships.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk more about the “selfish” benefits of forgiving, but for now, take a few moments to consider the following questions.

 

Questions:  Have you ever noticed physical symptoms in  your body (tightness in chest, aches, grinding teeth, etc) that you just knew were connected to brokenness in the past?  Have your ever known someone whose unresolved bitterness seemed to take over their personality?

 

Prayer:  Lord, please don’t allow any “roots of bitterness” to gain a hold in our mind, body, and/or spirit.  Teach us your ways of forgiving and motivate us to put them into practice in our lives and relationships. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people facing a new diagnosis

 

Song:  Taylor wrote this song in response to hurtful critics. Other than just being fun, it a great song about moving beyond the hurt of the past

Shake It Off – Taylor Swift

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xG7mH8i-WE

Forgiveness at the Core

 

Romans 12:17-19, NLT - Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the Lord.

 

                For several days now, we’ve spent time dispelling many misunderstandings about forgiveness and disqualifying many imposters of forgiveness.  Forgiveness is not approval, minimization, ignoring, justification, excuse for an offense.  It is not reconciliation.  It is not justice.  It is not to be confused with healing or a restoration of trust.  It does not necessarily remove consequences for an offense.  It begins with the assumption that a wrong has been committed.  Forgiveness is always a choice that may or may not be accompanied by a particular feeling. 

With all of these pre-qualifications about forgiveness, we’re ready to get at the core of what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is the decision to enter the process of letting go of the right to punish or otherwise use the offense against the offender.  This process involves no longer allowing the offense to take up space in our heart.  It involves the determination do what is necessary to move towards healing of the wound instead of continually re-opening it with rehash after rehash of the offense.   It is a move toward restoring wholeness of heart and mind. It is move towards being more free.

Forgiveness is not for the weak or the timid.  It is hard work.  It often feels counterintuitive because we are doing something for ourselves about something that was done to us by someone else.  But as the scripture above teaches, we are also trusting that God will also do something as well.  God will take care of the offense.  So the work of forgiveness is also a decision to let God be God and not us. 

If this doesn’t sound attractive at this point, please know you are not alone.  I have not conducted any scientific surveys, but I’m quite confident more people than not do not count forgiveness as an oft-used tool in their spiritual and emotional toolbox. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about selfish reasons for learning how to forgive and why forgiveness is more practical than moral.  But for now, take stock of your spiritual and emotional toolbox.

 

Questions:  Is forgiveness a process you that you use on a regular basis to deal with the offenses others have committed against you.  When was the last time you forgave someone?

 

Prayer:  Forgiving God, we have old wounds caused by others that need healing.  Help us to see the ways we might be standing in the way of that healing by refusing to forgive.  Teach us your forgiving ways.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the healing of divisions in our country right now.

 

Song:  Healing Begins – Tenth Avenue North

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe1yKciSlT4

Forgiveness is a Choice

 

Matthew 18:21-22, NIV - Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

 

This week, we are talking about what forgiveness is and yesterday, we talked about the starting place of forgiveness is acknowledging that there was an offense.  Forgiveness is awareness.

                Next, forgiveness is a choice.  This might seem obvious to many, but I have been surprised to talk to so many people who are waiting on the moment when they feel forgiveness.  There are reasons for this, for most of us have had the experience of our feelings changing about something that happened in the past.  The intense feelings experienced when the event happen somehow fade over time.  We get new information about the event that changes our perspective.  For example, the experience of becoming a parent helped me see much of my childhood from a different perspective.  I feel differently about things that happened when I was a kid because I have now had kids of my own.  Being on the other side of that experience has caused my feelings to evolve.

                This also sometimes happens in relationship to situations that require forgiveness.  A new perspective and/or new information can help us feel more ready to forgive.  However, that change in feeling is not forgiveness.  Even with a more receptive heart, forgiveness is still a choice.  This will become more evident as we talk about other aspects of what forgiveness is, but right now, it’s important to note some other problems with seeing forgiveness as a feeling. 

                If we have to wait for a feeling to develop before we can forgive, than there is no hope for some offenses to ever be forgiven.  New information and new perspective might arise that actually intensify our feelings of anger and hurt instead of cause those feelings to subside, pushing us further away from feeling like forgiving.  We might not ever get new information or perspective.  In many, if not most cases, our feelings about the offense may never change, which leads us to our next problem with forgiveness as a feeling.

                Forgiveness is not passive.  In the passage above, Peter asks Jesus how many times he must forgive an offender.  The question itself assumes that forgiveness is a choice.  Peter wants to know how many times he must make that choice before it alright to make the different choice not to forgive a repeat offender.  Without getting into biblical numerology, let me just say that Jesus’s answer effectively means “as many times as there are offenses.”  Jesus says this because forgiveness is a choice to free oneself from the entanglement created by the sins committed against us.  It is to claim the victory that Jesus Himself has won over sin in our particular situation.  God doesn’t get entangled in our sin because God chooses to forgive it.  God never gets to the point where God says, “well, that’s it;  I’m done forgiving.”  God’s eternal “yes” to the question, “will I forgive this time?” is never negated by our propensity to keep sinning.  Jesus essentially says to Peter, “you don’t want to stay entangled with others’ sin anymore than God does.”  Forgiveness is not only always a choice; it is always the best choice. 

                Actively choosing to forgive begins to break the hold that the offenses others have committed against us have on our hearts.  It can and often does begin to change the seemingly intractable negative feelings we have about what has been done to us.  Instead of passively waiting for forgiveness to move into our emotion, we can choose to actively move toward our own healing and freedom from the past.  This choice opens up more possibilities than we had before. 

 

Question:  Are there offenses others have committed against you that you have been waiting to feel differently about?

 

Prayer:  Thank you, Gracious God, for always choosing to forgive us.  Making that choice ourselves sometimes seems impossible.  Help us see the way toward making the choice to forgive as well.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for God to bless someone who you currently hold resentment toward.

 

Song:  Losing – Tenth Avenue North

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHcVTbyJqis