iThink...thereFore, iAm

(In Down In The Dirt, I attempt to address very real aspects of living a Christian life, well aware that not all can always be “fine and dandy”, and there will be small issues and inklings that bug us. These are observed in my own life as well as the lives of others, and though a solution may not always be present and expounded on, I do believe that sometimes these “real” issues are symptoms of deeper issues and part of life on earth is dealing with them - so let’s be real and get down there, in the dirt!)

The Struggle to Forgive…and why?

I think the struggle to forgive reveals more aspects of our own heart than anything else. The decision (or lack thereof) to do so also reveals quite a bit! Let’s get to the hard bit: why is forgiveness such a struggle at times? We’ve all had those few times (ok maybe a lot of times for me) where I really don’t feel like forgiving that person who’s done me wrong. It’s as simple as that - but let’s dissect that little sentence up and see what’s really underneath it as we touch on each aspect just briefly.

“I don’t feel like forgiving the person”
When we say this statement as a whole, we have to admit that our focus is on the person and what he or she has done. Why we don’t feel like forgiving the person is because he or she has done something against us, and therefore we feel wronged in the process. There was an action taken or a word said that hit us and hurt us, and now we’re struggling to give full forgiveness to the other party simply because of the action done.

Let me first say that this is a totally natural reaction/thought process, so don’t go beating yourself up about it (but that’s no excuse to let it take root either). We have been so brought up in the world these days (and I’m assuming that you’ve had enough years in this world that you can actually read all this and understand it, which is really more than enough years needed to be integrated into the world) to take good care of ourselves that once our well-placed defences are broken through and we’re injured, we seek recourse for it. The focus is on the person and what was done. What we fail to see is what it has done and what it is doing to us.

I’m not asking us to be self-centred here, nor am I saying that we should wholly focus on the pain and the hurt and the wrong that has been inflicted upon and “oh GOSH how tough things are now that I can’t bear to wake up in the mornings” or stuff like that. What I’m trying to bring across here is the idea that forgiveness doesn’t start from the person to be forgiven, it starts from the one doing the forgiving.

It starts with us.

Do you remember any instance where you were the offender instead of the offended? How did forgiveness work? Maybe you went back and asked for it - and then it was given. Maybe you didn’t ask for it for whatever reason (I’ll assume innocence of the situation and you really didn’t know what you did), and forgiveness came to you eventually. Either way, it was an act and a choice on the part of the forgiver, whether you initiated the process or not. The onus of forgiveness is on the person doing the forgiving, regardless of repentance or not.

We first need to realize that forgiveness is not focused on the other person as a reason to forgive, but comes from obeying the heart of God in His character.

“I don’t feel like forgiving…”
There could be a million reasons for this, but there is one underlying cause - we probably don’t think the other person deserves it. Let’s face it, we don’t want to dish out forgiveness; we want to enact justice. Because that’s what it’s all about right, punishing those who deserve to be punished and rewarding those who deserve to be rewarded. And if we truly believed that the person deserves to be forgiven then it shouldn’t be a problem right?

Take a step back and read those lines again - at one point of time, we might not have said but I’d think we definitely have felt it. We want justice. Vengeance. Not to let the wrongs that have befallen us simply slide past! After all, God is just, isn’t He? They can’t get off scot free!

But there’s a simple flaw in this statement: in this seemingly objective decision we’ve made, we’ve used our own definition of “justice” in the equation. Yet somehow I don’t think we need a reminder that our sense of “justice” isn’t exactly the same sense of “justice” that God has. I’ll make this explicitly clear: whoever it is that has wronged you may not deserve to be forgiven - but neither do you.

Wow. Did that hit? It should. The revelation of our own heart as we think that is that we are a self-righteous people. We all are, it’s probably rooted deep inside those deceitful hearts of ours. We have felt the right to be judge, jury, and executioner, when in fact the reality is that we are the ones standing on the convicted’s stand being tried. Is it unfair? Sure it is. It’s a little hard to stomach this but when we realise the entire world is unfair and we only stop complaining when it’s unfair in our favour, then suddenly things become a little less hazy. We don’t think someone hasn’t deserved the forgiveness because perhaps he hasn’t earned it. Or because he shows no remorse for what he’s done. Or because he doesn’t want to change his ways anyway.

When I “heard” myself thinking that, I stopped to think what difference it would be if Jesus were thinking of forgiving me. I realised He already has - even knowing that I would use His forgiveness as cheap grace at times. He knew with all certainty what I was going to do, and He knew that I would still sin, and yet in His mercy He still forgave me, ahead of time.  It gives a whole new perspective in that very example of divine and perfect forgiveness was first of all done at a cost (we’ll get to that later), and secondly done despite the full knowledge that the forgiven (and that would be me) wouldn’t necessarily correct all his (my) ways after being forgiven.  Did I deserve it? Nope, definitely not. But that’s the magic of forgiveness, isn’t it - that it says more about the forgiver than the forgiven. Maybe, to play a pun, that’s why it’s called forGIVEness - because it’s given and not earned.


“I don’t feel…”
Well, firstly whoever said forgiving was primarily an emotion? I’m not dissing the fact that you don’t feel like it - often times I don’t feel like it either. But here comes the clincher - forgiveness is primarily an act of the will, then secondly an act of emotion. Forgiveness first takes the words (and be sure to hold to them!) “I forgive you”, and then later lets the emotions catch up to it. Think about it - have you ever had the intense desire to want to forgive someone for something he or she has wronged you? Don’t feel bad if you haven’t - it rarely happens. More often than not we say it even though we don’t feel like it, and (I would hope) that the words we speak bind us to moving in that direction of forgiveness. The very reason why forgiveness is so hard is because it’s against the eye-for-an-eye instinct that is so well ingrained into us. It’s one of the things that needs to be acted on first and the emotions will follow up later, as important as feelings are.

Some people just don’t want to forgive another - it makes them feel justified. “Something wrong has been done and I SHOULD feel an anger against it. Things must be put right!” It is this very theme that makes many movies Oscar Award Nominees and Box Office Hits - a person, rising up against injustice against all odds and in the end the good guy wins. And to be honest it feels good to have that anger well up against injustice, doesn’t it? It makes us feel that we are moral people, and have a sense of uprightness, and when we see or hear people who don’t feel that same sense of disgust at injustice we think “what is wrong with you? Is your mind warped?”

Once again, we have placed ourselves as the benchmark, as is our habit for so many things as humans - our self-righteousness seems to be evident in all aspects! And thus we feel that our anger is justified and therefore should not be quelled - at the cost of developing a bitterness in our heart and a dissatisfaction toward the ways of justice. Worse still, a resentment to how God handles things, because we believe we know what is right and what should be done. And that brings us to the last point.

“I…”
Earlier I mentioned that the focus of the act of forgiveness is not whether the person has repented or not - it is up to us to decide and make a choice to forgive. But here I want to bring across the other extreme perspective - it’s not entirely about us either. It doesn’t prove that we are more holy, more mature, more giving if we make that choice, because forgiveness wasn’t ours to give in the first place!

The very reason why we choose not to forgive is often because we are focused on ourselves - and strangely enough this goes in tandem with focus on everything else. “I have been wronged”, “I have been hurt”, “I have been cheated”, and so on - and again I feel that it’s necessary to say that it is not wrong to feel this way. But it becomes wrong and harmful for us when we allow for this to seep into our hearts and we harbour unforgiveness in the process (we’ve already talked about what happens then, and therefore the need to forgive).

There have been times where I have felt wronged, whether it was intended or not, whether it was even real or just imagined, the feelings were there. Once again, thoughts flash back to Jesus - when He was wronged, hanging on the cross, mocked and beaten, bloody and bruised from the abuse; probably the ultimate example of being wronged. His words? “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  There is something deep in these words - it was not only unconditional and done without repentance from those who committed the sin, but it sounds pretty much like a request for the Heavenly Father to forgive them. Why not just “Father, I forgive them, because they know not what they do?” Why couldn’t Jesus, being fully man and fully God, just pass that forgiveness onto them, so that there would be no crime? I wonder if the lesson there to learn is that forgiveness is passed by One who has all authority to forgive. Ravi Zacharias states in “The Grand Weaver” that the moral code lies above man - it rests with God, who is the ultimate definition of morality. Only one who is above the crime can forgive the crime.

So far there is a pattern in all the reasons for a struggle to forgive another - and that is simply “I”. We presume to stick to our own moral code, we want to feel justified in anger so that we can convince ourselves that we have a higher ground and understanding, and we rely on our own emotions to determine whether forgiveness is warrented or not. But we forget many things in our anger and pain: that forgiveness (as mentioned before) is really more for the forgiver than the forgiven, that it reveals much in our heart, and also that forgiveness is God’s to give in the first place. When we accept that we are ALL sinners, that we are ALL undeserving of forgiveness for crime against The Most High, I believe our hearts take a new position on forgiveness; if He has forgiven me, what right do I have not to forgive another? The parable of the King and the debtors comes to mind.

Perhaps for those who are still struggling, either with the act of forgiving, or the fact that a lot of this hits home, I want to suggest two things:

1) You may want justice, but justice is not yours to act on. I know we have been enamoured by all the childhood shows (and even for me in budding adulthood) of Superman and Batman and X-men and all the instances where vigilantes fight for justice against crime and evil. I too still dream of making many things in the world right, and I do believe it’s a good motivation - not to act on our own, but to do what is pleasing in God’s eyes. The Psalmists write many times over about injustice in the world - many times from personal accounts, so much that I began to be amazed at how much was written, even throughout the Bible, about wrongdoings and injustice. But there’s an echoing theme throughout the Bible, and it’s even explicitly stated in parts of the Psalms: Vengeance is God’s.

Maybe in that light why we cannot forgive at times is back to the big “I” - we believe we have to make things right. We believe we have the power to (and in a sense we do, but there are appropriate reactions to circumstances), and we want to act on that firm sense of justice that we think is so objective. This is something we can all avoid - when I speak of hurts, I make it clear that pains and grievances are spoken of only when preceded by the words “I feel”. It doesn’t sound like much but the detachment from fact and absolutes helps me to keep in mind that these are things that are from my perspective, from my experience, and are in no way taken as absolute truth. Many times it has helped me to keep a focused mind in dealing with situations and definitely in quelling anger. Yet even as I write this I must confess that anger and hurt still well up in my heart, remembering those times and circumstances (and we’ll mention something about that in the next section).

The recurring theme is obvious - the person in the unfortunate state always turns to God, there is a blatantly honest pouring of frustrations and hurts and anger to God directed at the enemy, and then there is praise for God and trust that He will handle the situation. I often marvel at how David’s Psalms have such an absolute trust that God can and will handle everything that comes his way - particularly so with all the chances he had to simply take over the throne, knowing that God’s blessing was with him to be king after all. I believe this only came to David because he was assured that God loved him, and would definitely take care of him - for it is only in risk and danger that trust is formed.

2) The first step in forgiving another is to forgive ourselves. We often carry our own burden far heavier than we should have - and unforgiveness toward another stems easily when we have forgotten how to forgive ourselves.

We need to understand that we are no better, in God’s eyes, than the next sinner, for ALL have sinned. There is no “greater sin” or “lesser sin”, just “sin” that mars the soul and blocks us from God. It’s not a matter of who is more righteous - none of us are. Neither is it a matter of how lightly we have been offended. I will say this upfront - it matters, and that’s why it hurts. But it is also precisely because we have delivered a more grievous hurt to an Innocent One, that we need to understand that the one who is hurt most in the whole situation is still Him.

That’s not easy to believe - I find myself often asking God whether He really cares that i’m feeling such, whether He’s listening to me, and why He’s allowed all this to happen. I don’t often get answers to those questions. But sometimes I have to admit - it feels like there’s someone crying right there with me.

Still struggle with forgiveness? Maybe it’s a sign pointing you to God again - spend some time with Him. Not plotting, not with any agendas. Just some blatant honest time with Him, maybe getting to know Him a little more, pouring out your heart to Him and telling Him how you feel.

Believe me, He’s listening.