Archive for forgiveness
Do You Need to Forgive Yourself?
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What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done? What is the worst mistake you’ve ever made? What is the greatest harm you’ve ever committed to another human?
Do you have your list? Did the pictures in your mind come up faster than high-speed internet?
Most of us don’t have any trouble recalling the worst moments of our lives. I imagine that when I asked those questions, you not only recalled the “bad” things you have done, but you also reconnected to some feelings of shame and guilt.
A foundational truth of Christianity is that we come into relationship with God through forgiveness based on the work of Christ. We maintain the flow of fellowship both with God and man by confessing our sins and appropriating the purifying work of Christ into our daily lives.
While we may understand the role of forgiveness in our Christian walk in relation to God and to others, we may find it harder still to be aware of the need to forgive ourselves.
Woven into the fabric of our core belief system may be the unspoken, and often unrecognized, belief that refusing to forgive ourselves shows God that we realize what dirty rotten sinners we really are and agrees with God that we don’t deserve to be forgiven.
And while we are sinners and don’t deserve forgiveness apart from Christ, through Christ we become righteous and through his grace, we are offered forgiveness. Living in that forgiveness means that we acknowledge that God offers us radical, undeserved forgiveness and we cannot make ourselves more deserving of that forgiveness by holding ourselves prisoner to past mistakes.
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Forgiving
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Forgiving. It’s basic Christianity, right? It’s fundamental. It’s like a required course for all Christians, Forgiveness 101. You gotta take it. Every single student has to enroll in this class. So we take the course. We think we figure it out. We know we have to forgive in order to be forgiven. We breathe prayers, “Lord, I forgive __________.” That should cover it, huh? And then we find out that the course has a second semester, Forgiveness 102. So we enroll because we have to. We think we get the material and we’ll sort of have this stuff conquered. And then we find there is Forgiveness 201 and 202 and 301 and 302 and 401 and 402. Then for those who will do the work there is Forgiveness 501 and 601 and so it goes.
It’s like peeling layers of an onion. There just always seems to be another layer. Those layers represent all the stuff in our hearts that keep us stuck, the things that keep us from growing, and the things that hinder us from really knowing God and really knowing ourselves.
Jesus told us that it was impossible to live in this world without offenses coming to us. We will be offended at times. We will be hurt by other people. And we will hurt and offend others ourselves. Dealing with these offenses is one of the ways God offers us to do our own soul work. By that I mean the kind of work that God invites us into where we own our own stuff, we discover our own our wrong patterns of thinking, and we allow God to reveal our own hearts to us.
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I’m Sorry
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Like molasses reluctantly ascending from an overturned jar, my words moved from somewhere deep within. The battle raged. I wanted to apologize, and yet, I didn’t. One part of my heart was tender, caring, and repentant. Another part was calloused, stubborn, and selfish.
My two natures each sought victory. I identified with Paul, remembering the words he spoke in Romans 7 of the inner war. For the moment, my Christ’ nature won, yet often my flesh nature waves its victory flag.
Why is it so difficult to say those two little words? I’m sorry.
We can’t maintain healthy relationships without humility and repentance, but we all struggle to allow Christ to rule in our hearts. My flesh nature and your flesh nature are never truly dead in this life and frequently resurrect to remind us.
Paul reminds us in Philippians 2:3-5 that we are to do nothing out of selfish ambitions or vain conceits, but that we are, in humility, to consider others more than ourselves, having the same attitude of Christ.
How do we allow our selfish natures to be crucified? The best answer seems to be “one nail at a time”.
Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, year by year, we walk with Christ. We learn more of his heart and his nature. We learn more of our own heart and our own nature.
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Beyond Blame
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(This is part two of a series on forgiveness. I’m not sure how many parts there will be! Pt. 1 is The Hardest Thing You’ll Ever Do).
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Forgiveness – The Hardest Thing You’ll Ever Do
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Forgiveness is hard. Forgiving an offender is hard. Let’s just cut through the religiousness we hide behind and tell the truth. It is hard. Oh, not so much when someone cuts us off in traffic or steals that parking place we had our eye on. We can move on pretty quickly when the offense is not relational. But it is in relationships that we have the potential to be hurt, offended, betrayed, and find ourselves with a heart struggling to forgive (and it is in relationships that we also have the potential to hurt others, offend others, betray others. As a matter of fact, all, and I do mean all, relationships must deal with this issue.)Whether it is words spoken or the lack or words spoken when we needed them, actions taken or the lack of actions taken, or the million other ways we can be hurt, at times we all find ourselves at times in the position of having a major offense in our hearts that needs to be dealt with.
We Christians build our faith on Christ forgiving us for our sins. Most of us know what the Word says about forgiveness. It’s not for babies. You won’t be forgiven if you don’t forgive. Your lack of forgiveness allows “the tormentors” to access your life. On and on we could go. God doesn’t give us any wiggle room on the issue, but yet we all find ourselves struggling. How do we overcome?
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