All too often I focus on the evidence of unforgiveness in my life rather than the forgiveness. I’m familiar with the indicators of unforgiveness because I know them well. I know the messy battle of wrestling with what I know to do and how I end up acting.
I know the struggle of saying I’ve forgiven someone, and then the very real evidence that proves I’ve still got a ways to go. And then there are those moments in time that feel like delicate spun glass, filled with crystal clarity that God has worked a miracle. Forgiveness so real that you feel only love and zero residual effects of the offense.
Fully formed forgiveness does three miracles in our hearts.
The most epic story of forgiveness is found between a man named Joseph and his eleven brothers. Jealousy left unchecked and unforgiven causes behaviors that lead to life-long regret. Joseph’s brothers conspired to kill him, but ended up selling him instead. Then they covered up their malice by telling their father he was dead and “proving” by drenching Joseph’s cloak in animal’s blood.
Time passed and Joseph’s journey led him to entrusted slave to the pit to entrusted prisoner to second in command in Egypt. Could he have cultivated bitterness, hatred, and revenge in his heart toward his brothers? But how could his trust in God have grown if he had? I think in the deepest of his hearts he wrestled with his emotions and the dreams God placed in his heart.
Submitting and surrendering to God won. Forgiveness reigned in his heart.
But lurking in his brother’s hearts was doubt. Could this brother of theirs that they hated really and truly forgive them? Was it a show for their father’s sake?
And in the finding we see the three miracles that forgiveness brings to our hearts.
It leaves the righting of wrongs in God’s hands. Joseph asks them, “Am I in the place of God?” You see, God doesn’t want us to take revenge. He wants us to leave other’s actions and responses in his hands. We miss out on God’s redemption for our own hearts when we allow ourselves to be consumed with revenge. Our hearts grow hard and we see nothing but our rage, which makes us rage at others and, frankly, causes us to behave in ways that wound. Leave the righting of wrongs to God. He will make all things right in his time and in his way.
To see God’s plan in man’s malice. God used hate-filled intentions to bring Joseph to a place where many lives could be saved. Joseph saw, by God’s grace, a larger picture than what he lived. He trusted God with his heart and life even when he couldn’t see how it would work out. You can too. You may only see and feel the hurt caused by another’s choices or actions, but ask God to give you a glimpse into how God is using the wound. Maybe he’s growing compassion in you or the ability to forgive. And that maybe you’ll get to share your story with someone who needs to hear how God worked good out of bad.
To repay evil with practical affection. Joseph ends Genesis with kindness. Kindness is love in action. He acted kindly toward his brother and their families. It’s one thing to speak words, but it’s an altogether different thing to act kind towards someone who meant you harm. Remember my story from a couple of weeks ago? Even though my heart pounds with the memory of the pain, I can show kindness.
Let forgiveness work it’s miracle. It’s a process and some days you won’t feel like you’re making any progress. Rather than turn away from God and the person, turn to God with your hurt and pain and let him move in you and through you. The first step is declaring forgiveness. The second and third and fourth and so on, is embracing the process. And then it becomes real. Let the process transform you as love transformed the Velveteen Rabbit into a real bunny.
I like to think I’m a forgiving person, that my thoughts and words are kind. But I find myself struggling to overlook the offense. It’s as if the enjoyment of holding onto a grudge is more enticing than the glory God promises if I overlook an offense. Or I say I forgive, but then struggle to say the right things, or think good thoughts or even be around said person. I know I need to forgive, but the hurt is so great and so I struggle.
Physical wounds don’t heal instantly. Our blood clots to stop the bleeding. New skin replaces burnt skin. Bruises transform from mottled purple to chartreuse to gone. Our bodies heal, but it’s not instantaneously.
Forgiveness is a process, not an option, and we’ll get into that at a later date. For today, let’s talk about the process.
We need to forgive. Overlooking an offense doesn’t mean we don’t recognize that the offense happened, it means we address the hurt in our heart and extend forgiveness.
But how do we recognize that the offense has taken root as unforgiveness? By looking at our behavior toward the memory or person that caused the offense.
Blame is an indicator of unforgiveness
Relationships with others is like a dance. And when one person gets their toes stepped on or is wounded, we want to blame someone. Someone I called friend accused me of ungraciousness and judgmental behavior. She took my words and twisted them into something ugly and walked away from our friendship. It was a like a stab in the back with a vicious twist of the knife.
Women friendships became liabilities for me. I didn’t trust women to be good friends, and I second guessed each word said. Every conversation would replay in my head as I agonized if it would be or could be interpreted wrong. The fact that I blamed her for my inability to participate in other friendships indicated my struggle with unforgiveness. I knew I needed to forgive and I did so because it’s what I was suppose to do, but I struggled to live it out. Blaming her became my excuse for not growing into the woman God wanted me to be.
Punishment is the second indicator.
In our unforgiveness, we withhold our approval and acceptance of the other person. We punish them through snubbing them or talking about the situation to other people forcing them to choose sides or we promote division by telling a biased version of the situation. Or we rail against them in our minds and fill our thoughts with revenge.
Forgiveness is a process.
Forgiveness is a process. That’s not to say that we should justify our unforgiveness, but there’s a difference in our behavior when we’re in the process of forgiving or just not forgiving.
When we’re in the process of forgiveness, we often feel fake because we’re behaving in a forgiving way, but we’re still dealing with the hurt, which makes it seem that our forgiveness isn’t real. I don’t know about you, but it’s harder to forgive someone who’s close to me rather than the driver that stole my parking spot in the mall. We live in relationship with people and we can’t run away to the wilderness until we’ve full forgiven the person.
So we live with this tension of the process of forgiveness. We need to learn to recognize when we’re in the process: choosing behaviors that demonstrate godliness such as mercy and grace versus when we really haven’t forgiven at all with behaviors of blame and punishment.
“And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Mark 1:4
John the Baptist preached the baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sin. To repent means to turn from your sin. I am sinful. You are sinful. Withholding forgiveness is sinful. To blame or punish someone is sin. And when we turn from unforgiveness to forgiveness, we experience a washing of our soul. God washes us clean and gives us the strength to behave in a forgiving manner while He walks us through the process of forgiveness. This is a life being transformed.
Is it easy? No. Is it worth it? Absolutely.
When you live in community with others in the process of forgiveness, you experience the power of the Holy Spirit guiding you. You get to see and experience the difference of being led by your flesh or led by the Spirit of God.
The Takeaway
The two identifiers of unforgiveness: Blame and Punishment.
Recognize that forgiving someone is a process and submit to the process.
I’ve worn bitterness like a security blanket. I’ve wrapped it tight around me and held it close under my chin. The fabric is worn and ragged with stuffing spilling out, but still I cling to it. Nothing can penetrate, and no one can see what’s underneath. I’ve found comfort in my grief. It’s familiar. There’s constancy in replaying that conversation that slashed my heart. Instead of applying the salve of grace, I replay bitterness and hate and watch as the wound festers and weeps.
Bitterness doesn’t need much to take root. It can be a disappointment in a health diagnosis, a lack of response to your latest effort to connect with people, or harsh words exchanged between two people. But before we get to bitterness, we have to recognize something else.
Grief.
If we reserve the expression of grief for those “big bad” experiences like death or devastation, then we’re ill-equipped to deal with the daily griefs. The daily griefs are more commonly known as disappointments and offenses.
But when I trace the disappointments back to the core feeling, I find grief. I’m sad because something didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. Or God didn’t answer my prayer the way I thought he should. Or someone I love chose to reject the very thing that I’m passionate about. Sorrow is at the root of these disappointments.
At the root of my response to offense, underneath the anger, is sadness. I’m sad that someone I called “friend” chose to walk away. Or insult me. Or turn others against me. I’m angry, but I’m sad too. And sadness is grief. And it must be processed in order for us to know the freedom that forgiveness brings.
But It’s in the processing where we trip and fall. And some of us don’t even like to process our emotions. Let’s just forget it and move on. Let’s pretend it didn’t happen. If we ignore it, it will go away. And in running away from conflict we find ourselves struggling to experience authenticity in our life. And when we fail to experience authenticity, we rob ourselves of the fullness of God’s grace.
The antidote to bitterness is grace. It’s grace that gives us the power to forgive when forgiveness seems impossible. Grace gives us the courage to place our wounds in God’s gentle hands. It’s grace that reminds us that without God, we are wretched sinners bound for hell. It’s grace that washes us and makes us new. It’s grace that God longs to give us and it’s grace that makes a way for us to boldly walk into the throne room of God and ask for daily grace.
“See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;” Hebrews 12:15
The problem with wearing bitterness in our hearts is that eventually it shows up on the outside. We might feel secure and justified in it, but to other people all they see is that ragged security blanket that’s starting to smell.
Bitterness manifests itself in your approach to people. It’s a hard edge in your voice. It’s cynicism in your relationships. Bitterness manifests itself in your speech when your words tear others down instead of building them up.
Bitterness leads to selfish ambition which leads to forgetting what your purpose here on earth is for: to make God known and enjoy him forever.
But God. The most two powerful words in our language. But God. But God can turn our bitter into sweet through the power of his grace. Don’t fail to obtain grace. Receive it. Surrender your hurts, wounds, anger, and sadness. Practice grace. When that hurtful scene replays in your mind, see yourself running to the throne room, getting grace, and then pouring God’s grace on the situation.
It’s God who works in you. I know what it’s like to be unable to forgive. The hurt is too deep. Too personal. It feels like I’m bleeding to death while I put a smile on my face and go about my day and no one sees me bleeding out. Partly because I don’t let them. Partly because I don’t want to give voice to the beast inside me.
But what I can do is this: run to God, tell him of my incapabilities and that hurt has incapacitated me and that I need him to help me forgive. So I hold out my hurt and he pours his grace on it. He reminds me of his stripes and the beating he took for me when I was still a wretched awful sinner. And then he enables me to extend that same grace to the one who wounded me. And exchange bitterness for grace.
The Takeaway
Consider a situation that has caused you grief.
Listen to this song and picture yourself running to God’s throne room.
Imagine God filling up your bucket with grace and then imagine you pouring it out on your situation.
