FORGIVE EVERYONE, ALWAYS, AND DO IT IMMEDIATELY

The month of February is a time many people express their love to other people. Indeed, Forgiveness is a manifestation of love. People who truly love each other, whether in a marital relationship, as friends, or as family members, as examples, will forgive one another because of their outgoing concern for each other. Forgiveness is one way of expressing love and commitment to another human being. “Love prospers when a fault is forgiven but dwelling on it separates close friends.” “Hatred stirs old quarrels, but love overlooks insults.” “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” “The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him.” To give and receive forgiveness is the highest act of love. The art of forgiveness allows the offending partner to be pardoned, absolved and set free without punishment. … Forgiveness allows the hurt partner to be freed from carrying the pain, anger and bitterness and obsessing, which is debilitating and soul-destroying. Forgiveness has nothing to do with justice or denying your own pain and the other person’s responsibility in hurting you. … Forgiveness is ultimately an act of love for yourself – to allow you to feel peace, joy, and love again. Forgiveness not only helps heal your emotional scars, but physical ones, too. “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” 1 Peter 4:8 ESV.

Forgiveness involves recognizing that the person who harmed us is more than just the person who harmed us. He or she is in fact, a full-fledged human being whose full dimension isn’t defined by their foolish decision to harm us in some way. I believe forgiveness is an acknowledgment that a person who’s harmed us still has the capacity for good. Forgiveness requires us to view our offender not as malevolent but as confused who believe that by harming us they could somehow become happier. Forgiving requires us to let go—of our anger; of our desire to punish or teach a lesson; of our need to revenge on our harmer; of the notion that by choosing to forgive an offense we’re in some way condoning an unjust action committed against us or committing an injustice ourselves; of the need for an apology; and of the need for our harmer to change. Also forgiving another their transgression against us, we’re ultimately seeking to free ourselves and as the saying goes, doesn’t mean forgetting. It doesn’t mean returning the person we’ve forgiven to their former status in our lives, but we move on healed from the hurt done to us. “Real forgiveness is a lifelong commitment. You must practice it everyday.” –  Richard Daly, God’s Little Book of Joy.

Forgiveness is hard; learning to forgive yourself a lot harder than forgiving others. Forgiving others may seem to be a choice. However, God’s Word directs/ commands us, “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins” (Mark 11:25). “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37).
As a divine example, God knew that man needed forgiveness, so He sent His Son Jesus to deliver all of mankind from the eternal consequences of their sins (1 John 4:9-10). Colossians 3:13 says, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Jesus not only had the power to forgive, but to grant us the ability to forgive others just as we have been forgiven. Forgiving others often starts as a decision of surrender-an act of our will and invites God to begin working in our lives and healing us. More so, we can ask God to enlighten us with the understanding that we need to fully forgive from our hearts. We simply need to make the choice to be open to forgiveness and reconciliation. Little wonder, then, that poet Alexander Pope wrote: “To err is human; to forgive, divine.”

We should remember that forgiveness does not justify the deed or the person; it does not provide God’s forgiveness for their actions, because only God can do that. While nothing can undo the past, we can do something about the condition of our own present and future. Forgiving others makes a way for our own healing to begin. A spirit of unforgiveness complicates and compromises our daily walk with God. Forgiving others releases us from anger and allows us to receive the healing we need. God has given us this specific instruction because He does not want anything to stand between us and Him. God’s love for us is beyond our comprehension. Forgiving others spares us from the consequences of living out of an unforgiving heart. God has not qualified one sin committed against us as warranting forgiveness and another not. For example, God is not saying, “If a person lies to you or steals from you, you should forgive him, but if they abuse you or harm your child, you can hold them in unforgiveness.” He is saying to forgive everyone, always, and do it immediately.

ROBERT ENRIGHT on Eight Keys to Forgiveness explains Forgiveness can be incredibly difficult. Sometimes the hurt is very deep, such as when a spouse or a parent betrays our trust, or when we are victims of crime, or when we’ve been harshly bullied. Anyone who has suffered a grievous hurt knows that when our inner world is badly disrupted, it’s difficult to concentrate on anything other than our turmoil or pain. When we hold on to hurt, we are emotionally and cognitively hobbled, and our relationships suffer. Forgiveness is strong medicine for this. When life hits us hard, there is nothing as effective as forgiveness for healing deep wounds. Jessica Cassity writes Forgiving Others Is the Best Thing You Can Do—for yourself. Happy people are more forgiving than unhappy people, according to a recent study in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. Also forgiving someone for a past transgression can make you feel better. The mechanism is fairly simple. “Forgiveness is a process over time that includes letting go of negative emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, and replacing those with positive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors toward the offender,” says Ann Christine Recine, DNP, a nurse practitioner who studies forgiveness and works with patients on the practice. In fact, you may never say the words “I forgive you” out loud. Instead, forgiveness is an internal process, something you do to help come to terms with a past experience and end your suffering, pain, anger, and resentment around the event. You simply decide to stop focusing on blame and instead move forward in a more positive direction.

Wayne Jackson writes on Understanding Forgiveness, “In his second Corinthian epistle, Paul admonishes the saints to forgive a certain wayward brother, so that the erring brother might not be overcome with sorrow (2 Cor. 2:7). In Colossians 3:13, Paul twice uses the term—once for the forgiveness we ought to extend to one another, and then to that which we received from Christ. It suggests that just as the Lord graciously forgave us, we should wholeheartedly extend the same kindness to others. The idea of forgiveness stirs the soul and has some intriguing implications. First, forgiveness implies an offense has been committed. If there is no breach of propriety, no forgiveness is needed. The fact that accountable human beings require forgiveness, therefore, suggests that they have committed offenses (sins) against their Creator. This, in itself, suggests that a standard of conduct has been violated. The Bible addresses both of these matters in one verse. An inspired apostle declares that “sin is lawlessness” (1 Jn. 3:4). Lawlessness literally means “without law,” and it represents a “revolt against God” (Bromiley 1985, 654). All of us, to a degree, are spiritual outlaws!

Second, forgiveness implies the inability to remedy the violation of the law.   In one of his parables, Jesus told of a man who was head-over-heels in debt to his lord. In describing the hapless condition of the debtor, the Lord said that “he had not wherewith to pay” (Matt. 18:25). That man represents you and me. We do not have the wherewithal to remedy our despicable condition. We cannot untell a lie once it is told. We cannot un-commit adultery after the foul deed has been done. Sin cannot be undone by any human maneuver. And so, according to the language of the parable, the lord (representing God) “being moved with compassion, released him [the debtor], and forgave him the debt” (Matt. 18:27).

Why is forgiveness hard?

Forgiveness is hard. But why? Perhaps for the following reasons:

1. We’re often reluctant to let go of our anger. People get angry to achieve or regain control. It’s inherently difficult, if not impossible, to forgive someone with whom we’re still angry. This is true even if the predominant reason we’re angry isn’t due to frustration at having lost control but in outrage at the injustice committed against us. In the same way soft tissue inflammation is helpful only in the first few days after an injury occurs, often causing even more damage than the original injury if it’s allowed to become chronic, anger—no matter what its cause—if allowed to boil without being harnessed to accomplish anything worthwhile, can cause us far more harm than good.
2. We want to satisfy our sense of justice. Even if we’re not angry, if we believe our offender doesn’t deserve our forgiveness, we may find ourselves withholding it to avoid appearing to condone what they did to us.
3. Forgiveness may feel like letting our offender off the hook without punishment. Even if we don’t feel that forgiveness implies, we condone the injustice committed against us, to release our anger and forgive our offender may feel like letting them get away without being punished, especially if no other punishment is forthcoming.
4. We wish to harm as we’ve been harmed. An eye for an eye often feels viscerally satisfying (remember, anger must be discharged in a way that feels satisfying). If we lack the power to deliver actual harm, harboring anger may feel like a second-best option. Holding a grudge does in a certain sense feel good.
5. They haven’t apologized. The power of an apology to open the path to forgiveness can’t be overestimated. Nor can the ability of withholding an apology—of the refusal to acknowledge a wrong was committed—to block it.
6. When someone commits an injustice, we often cease to see or believe they could be capable of any good. We tend to abstract those who harm us, , diminishing them from full-fledged human beings into merely “our offenders.” This enables us to refuse to allow into our conception of them any room for the possibility that they have positive characteristics or have the capability to do good

How does forgiving others benefit us:

1. Forgiving others is the only way to break a cycle of violence (whether physical or otherwise). As complex as it may be, consider the core reason why the Israeli/Palestinian conflict continues to this day.
2. In order to forgive, we must manifest a life-condition of compassion. In Nichiren Buddhism this is called the life-condition of the bodhisattva. A bodhisattva is someone whose most pressing concern lies with the happiness of others. Attaining this life-condition benefit no one more than it does us, as it is a life-condition of joy.
3. In order to forgive we must let go of our anger. If we continue to hold onto anger, it often leaks out against others who’ve committed no crime against us, as well as colors all our experiences, often ruining our ability to feel joy in many aspects of life.

 

Finding the compassion to forgive:

In order to muster compassion for one who’s harmed us, we must first believe with our lives that all people originally desire to become happy. From there we must find a way to realize our offender has simply gone completely awry in their pursuit of their own happiness and pity them as we would a misguided child. For no matter how sophisticated a person may seem, how confident and wise and successful, how could an intent to harm arise from anything other than a delusion? The question will naturally arise: are some people’s crimes so heinous that they don’t merit forgiveness? Parents who’ve abused us? Children who’ve rebelled against us? Spouses who’ve abandoned us? Friends who’ve betrayed us? Strangers who harmed us or our loved ones? Or even tyrants who’ve killed our families? Is Hitler, for example, forgivable? Can one forgive a person without forgiving their actions?

I would suggest only this: that if you find yourself holding onto a grudge against someone who’s grievously harmed you, for you to find a way to forgive them—for you to become the kind of person who can—will not only first and foremost benefit you, but ultimately may have the power to transform the life of the person you’re forgiving. Not always of course. In forgiving them you’re not only setting yourself free, you’re actually contributing to something of greater importance, something the world is literally crying out for in more places than you could probably name: peace.

Can Forgiveness Be Conditional?

Does imposing a condition for forgiveness compromise the forgiver’s moral integrity? In other words, is it possible to forgive and yet place conditions on forgiveness? There is no better illustration of this concept than that of the request of Christ while on the cross. Regarding those who were in the process of murdering him, the Lord petitioned: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Lk. 23:34).