Wholeness Ministries
www.wholeness.org
www.wholeness.org
To Forgive or Not to Forgive? Part 1
To forgive those who have caused us great pain is not an easy thing. It goes against our sense of justice. It is not fair. They deserve to be punished. All of this may well be true. However, Jesus is asking us to forgive others because of His grace and mercy in forgiving us. We deserved to be punished and it wasn't fair to Him that He had to go to the cross on our account, but He was willing to do that.
John 10:17-18 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life--only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."
I think most of us would probably understand what forgiveness is: "To excuse for a fault or offense; to pardon. To stop feeling anger or resentment against." We hear often what forgiveness is, but I want to look at another aspect of forgiveness. I want us to look at what forgiveness is not!
First: Forgiving is not forgetting.
To forgive does not necessarily mean we are going to forget. Our past is our past. But it does mean that we are not going to hold the offense against that person any longer. We are going to release it and let it go! Forgetting may be the result of forgiveness, but it is never the means of forgiveness. When we bring up the past against others, we are saying we haven't forgiven them. When we remember that past event and it still stirs deep emotions within us, most likely we have not truly forgiven them.
Example: Earlier I shared about how deeply I was hurt by people who were opposed to this ministry. How they had questioned my integrity, my honesty, attacked even what I felt was the most valuable thing I was doing. Now I remember vividly those people, the meetings and conversations we had, the settings and especially the one individual who was the lead antagonist in all of this. For quite some time I dealt with those feelings and though I had spoken the words of forgiveness when I thought of them all those old feelings would rise to the surface. There finally came a point when God went very deep with me and I had to admit to those feelings and get all that ugly stuff out of there. I thought that was the end of it until I walked into church one Wednesday evening and the person who had led this charge against me, was there in the church I was attending. Immediately, all that anger and those old ugly feelings came to the surface so quickly I almost lost it before I even knew what I was doing. I kept myself calm and on the way home, after some conversation with my wife it was obvious I had not dealt with all of that stuff yet. Well, there is a song with a line “take another trip around Mt.Sinai." I had to go back and deal with all that hurt and anger. Did I feel like that wasn't fair! I knew I was healed when later I saw him in church. By then I knew he was a broken man and rather than anger towards him, I felt his hurt. I went over, hugged him and told him how glad I was to see him there. Now that's forgiveness! I still remember all he did, but now I have love for him and pray for his healing and restoration.
Why is it so important to deal with the past? Because the past impacts the present! If you are unable to deal with those hurts from the past it is going to be difficult for you to move forward. Think about this: have you ever met a happy person who continually dwells on past difficulties? Chuck Swindoll tells the story of Chippie the parakeet. He said the bird's problems began when the woman who owned him decided to clean up the seeds and loose feathers from the bottom of his cage using a vacuum.
When the phone rang, the owner turned to pick it up, and you guessed it, with a thud and a whoosh, Chippie was gone. The owner quickly turned off the vacuum and unzipped the bag. There was Chippie. He was stunned but breathing. Seeing that he was covered with black dust, his owner rushed Chippie to the bathtub, where she turned on the faucet full blast and held the bird under the icy water. At that point she realized that she'd done even more damage, and she quickly cranked up her blow dryer and gave the wet, shivering little parakeet a blast. Chuck finished the story by saying, "Chippie doesn't sing much anymore..." Obviously Chippie had experienced some trauma in his life and probably didn't see much to sing about anymore. People who are unable to forgive and move on are a little like Chippie. They allow their past negative experience to color the way they live their lives today. I know that people suffer genuine tragedies in this imperfect world. People contract disease, they suffer unspeakable abuses, they experience severe trauma. The past is there, you can't pretend it didn't happen. But you can and must deal with it and you can move out of the prison of past hurts! Many will ask me how can I know if I've really forgiven them for what they did to me? If you vividly remember the event or words and it brings all those old feelings up, then you most probably have not really dealt with the roots of the hurt. If you remember the event or words and it does not touch your emotions any more, those angry, hurtful feelings are not there than most likely you have dealt with the roots.
Wholeness ministries offers a weekly School of Healing Prayer, individual prayer by appointment, numerous resources on both audio and videotape as well as our book "Learning To do What Jesus Did."
For more information please contact:
Rev. Mike Evans
4301 Stine Rd. Suite H
Bakersfield CA
USA 93313
661-833-2920
Fax 661-833-2934
mevans@wholeness.org
www.wholeness.org
