LIE: I can’t forgive

Lie:      I can’t forgive him/her/it.

Truth: You must forgive and therefore you can forgive.

Forgiveness is not an occasional act: it is an attitude. — Martin Luther King, Jr

Only God knows the untold heartache, anguish and discord, that offenses create. It happens in every relationship: marriages, family, work, neighbors, you name it, stuff happens. Jesus also said that it’s inevitable: “it is necessary that offenses come . . . ” The divine answer to this heartache is consistent and continual forgiveness. It is the only answer that can truly heal relationships.

So why do we have such trouble forgiving? What are the hindrances to true and sincere forgiveness? Here are at least four impediments:

1  We wait too long. We fail to consistently forbear. We’re called, not just to forgive, but to forbear:

With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;  — Ephesians 4:2

Unforgiveness is evidence that we’ve not made forgiveness an enduring attitude. It’s important to keep ‘short accounts.’ Forbearance is the first line of defense against offences. If we’re sufficiently forbearant, we may never need to forgive at all. But it’s usually the little irritations: the snubs, the slurs, the disappointments that build up over time that get to us. Most of us are tolerant enough to forbear the small things, at least for a while, but sometimes they accumulate enough that we need to forgive.

One reason we allow the slights to build up is a general unawareness of our own hearts. Too few of us know what it’s like to have a truly free heart, that is, a heart free of bitterness, anger and malice — too many of us allow a ‘background noise’ of this junk to go on and consequently we lose our awareness that it could be any different. If we grow accustomed to this background noise over a long enough period, we’ll start to assume that it’s normal. But it’s not. So many souls don’t know any difference, and thus, this lie – I can’t forgive – stays in force .

But if you’re free, you’ll know if you lose your peace, when your heart ‘locks up’ with anger and impatience toward your offender. At that point, while you still can, you need to exercise the muscle of forbearance.

2  We feel it’s our place to ‘supervise our offender’s justice.’ Even though we may be completely in the right, it is not our place to presume to administer justice – to choose when someone has suffered enough or to choose when to let them off the hook. The problem is, they will never fully meet our standards because they will likely continue to offend us.

3  We expect a certain degree of remorse to be necessary before we can or should forgive. Of course it does help us to forgive when someone expresses sincere remorse, but even if we see no remorse, no understanding, no acknowledgment, we still must forgive. We actually must forgive even if the person continues their offense with intent and malice. From the cross, Jesus showed us how it’s done: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they do.”

Forgiveness is not dependent on the other person — I don’t have to wait for them to ask for it; if they do, wonderful, but if not, we still forgive. One short aside here: forgiveness is mutually exclusive of confrontation; they are two different responses. Sometimes a relationship requires forgiveness with no confrontation, others require both. Regardless, forgiveness is never an option; it’s never conditional; it’s a gift we freely give. We do not forgive if or when an offender repents or stops their offense.

4  We assume the offense is too big, too bad; they’ve hurt us too much. No doubt some people do very bad things: murder, rape, mutilation, destruction of character and many other evils. These evils inflict real and lasting harm – disability, divorce, infertility, false imprisonment, loss of property, job or family, and so much more. In no way am I coldly trivializing these injustices by arguing for forgiveness. No, forgiveness is the best and only answer to an otherwise endless slog of bitterness and further loss.

Can you imagine the worst offense? Can any worse offense exist than the torture, slow asphyxiation, loss, separation and indignity that Christ suffered on the cross? The Romans designed crucifixion to be the slowest, most torturous and psychologically humiliating capital punishment imaginable. Probably no other form of public execution has ever surpassed it. The cross is the death chosen, before time, that Christ would suffer. I believe he ordained and reserved it for himself because he wanted to be able to understand and heal the most severe of wounds.

Forgiveness should be a hallmark of Christians – ‘behold how they love one another!’ As Christ has forgiven us, we also are to forgive — with the same liberality and no-strings-attached-ness; we are not to forgive with a begrudging, barely-eked-out, doing-you-a-favor, self-righteous, holier-than-thou posture. No, we forgive with love, simplicity and sincerity – a forgiving love with the power to create a community made up of lost souls and former enemies! Such is the power of true forgiveness.

So if you’ve been hurt, deeply hurt, even permanently damaged, I encourage you to open yourself to the deep compassion and understanding of Jesus, who alone has the capacity and position to heal you and release you from the bondage of unforgiveness. He alone will stand as the Judge on the Last Day. Your offender will not be able to escape his absolute scrutiny. When you see your oppressor’s true end, you very well may end up pleading for mercy on his behalf. Your mercy and forgiveness just may be the extension of God’s mercy that he needs to believe in a loving God.

Yet maybe it’s not a person, but a system that’s hurt you, whether malicious or not. Maybe you or your child are the victim of a vaccine injury or a surgical error or some environmental poison. How then do you forgive a nameless, faceless bureaucrat, a cryptic piece of legislation or a shadowy historical figure?

To forgive we must let it all go. But how? How can we possibly muster the strength and humility to forgive consistently? We do it by trusting in God’s perfect mercy and justice. Listen to Peter’s words:

For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:
Who committed no sin,
Nor was deceit found in His mouth;
who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; — I Peter 2:21–23 [emphasis mine]

This is the only way to fully release our heart. Something in us does need to make sure that justice is served — it’s actually a God-given sense, embedded deeply in each of us. We are to exercise this sense in a positive way for others: for the orphan, the widow, the foreigner, but not with vengeance. We must believe that —

Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. — Romans 12:19b

We must allow Jesus to exercise his rightful position and authority. We must trust him to be capable and competent to fulfill what only he can do: bring final and complete justice – vindicating us where we truly are in the right. He alone sees the whole picture, which qualifies him alone to administer true justice and mercy. When we trust him as Savior and Judge, then and only then can we freely forgive.

See also the introduction, Lies attacking our relationships to others.