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Forgiveness and Unforgiveness

Forgiveness is one of the most unnatural and difficult things anyone can do, and the difficulty is proportional to the real or imagined size of the offense.  I say that it is unnatural because the natural person lives as though there is no God, at least not functionally.  Unless God has done a work in a person's heart to reveal His grace to them (and their need for it), the most natural thing in the world is for a person to say, "No, I won't let it go.  I won't forgive that person.  They did something that is too awful and has made my life something I didn't want."  The natural person is all about this life.  They are all about their form of justice.  They do not believe that God will ever make things right.  They do not believe that God permitted it for a reason.  They only see that what they wanted that was taken or lost.

It matters not how illogical unforgiveness is.  You can explain how unforgiveness doesn't truly restore anything that was lost.  You can explain how unforgiveness imprisons only you - in fact, there are plenty of secular exhortations to forgive someone purely because of how it benefits us emotionally to let it go.  But real forgiveness is not a natural act.  It is a supernatural one.  

I've spoken to someone a few times who refuses to forgive a person who hurt a loved one of theirs.  Appealing to their sense and basic level of respect for God and religion, I reminded them of the words of Jesus, that those who do not forgive will not be forgiven.  Their response was, "I guess I am going to hell, then."  The words only caused them to dig in more, refusing to let it go, even before God.  That is because unforgiveness is far more than anger against our offender.  It is anger against God Himself.  It is protest against and refusal to humble ourselves before God Himself.

Unforgiveness is blindness.  It is a chosen blindness, however.  Focusing on how bad someone else is provides us some level of insulation.  If we were truly to drop the defense, we might see some things that make us very uncomfortable and throw our world upside down.  The sense of stability and control we have about our reality might lose its footing.  We might have to face that God and His justice lays claim not only on our offender's but also on ours.  It is a very hard road to turn around and walk back through.  When you are used to living in the victim state, where it's all about what was done to you or done to your loved one, where it's all about how your life isn't how you wanted it, it is nearly impossible to turn around and be humbled by your own sin and need for forgiveness.  The deeper you dig in your legal claim against the your offender, against God, the harder it is to pull those stakes out and see things for what they are.  But it is only a person who knows their need for forgiveness who can truly forgive another.  A proud person -and make no mistake, though it may feel otherwise, a person stuck in a victim mentality is cemented in pride- cannot forgive because a proud person will not acquiesce and submit to the reality of their own place before God.

There is a reason that the Lord calls us hypocrites who will not take the log out of our own eye before going to another to point out the speck in theirs.  We posture as though we are righteous, as though we have the right to hold onto a legal claim because, but we are not.  We are blind fools.  If we cannot address the log in our own eye, we will never have the right posture to address the sin in another.

There are few things more destructive than a person who is dug into the idea that they are victims.  A person who is solely focused on how they have been wronged and how they got a raw deal will not grow, will not forgive, and will justify all manner of horrible behavior that flows out of their wounds -everything from self-pity to bitterness and self-centeredness and rage.  They will justify all manner of selfishness and unbelief, so long as they can connect it to their wound.  They will not and do not trust God with their lives, they will not submit themselves before Him, and the longer it lingers the more incapable of love they become.  They can pretend all day long to maintain appearances, but a person who has sold themselves into victimhood is like a man who has locked himself into a tower.  He looks down on his offender, but he has isolated himself from God and everyone else.

If you are struggling with unforgiveness, I'm not speaking as one who does not understand.  I truly do.  You may hold onto these offenses for many reasons.  Perhaps you feel if you let it go, it will be like saying it was okay.  You don't trust that anyone is out there who hears you or will ever make it right.  Perhaps you feel guilty, and forgiving the offender means facing your own guilt on the matter -maybe deep down you feel somewhat responsible for what happened.  Or perhaps you feel you cannot forgive because it is an ongoing wound that will never resolve.  How can you forgive when you are still being cut, daily?

Here I implore you again to humble yourself before God and seek to understand His sovereign care over your life.  Trust Him, lean into Him, realize that you aren't somehow special because your life is broken.  Nobody gets out of this life without being squashed somehow.  If you cannot humble yourself, you will remain self-centered in your heart, no matter how much you try to appear otherwise before others.  You will not be able to love another truly if you cannot trust God with your life, and that is because loving others requires giving your life away to them regardless of the risks of being hurt.  You will not be able to forgive, because forgiveness also means letting go of your life and entrusting it to God.  You will also not be able to face your own sin, and therefore you will forego being restored to God and potentially restored to others.  


The most horrible thing about unforgiveness is that is convinces us that our biggest problem is about someone else.  It is about us and God.  It is about our sin of rebellion against God, Himself.  Seek Him while He may be found, before it is too late.  If you are stuck in your wounds, bring it to the light.  Bring it before the Lord, ask Him to show you the truth, to show you yourself, and then forgive.  You must forgive.  

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