Wholeness Ministries
www.wholeness.org

To Forgive or Not to Forgive? Part 2

SECOND: Forgiving is not pretending the offense didn't matter.

You may say to yourself; "well it's no big deal, that's just the way they are." We minister to a number of people who will often try to justify the actions of the very person who hurt them or they will flippantly pass off what was done to them as if it really didn't matter all that much when in reality there is very deep hurt there.

Example:
I had a friend who was very close to me do something that hurt me deeply. I couldn't believe he would actually do that. But instead off confronting him and dealing with the hurt I just passed it off by saying to myself; "well that's just him, he probably doesn't even realize how hurtful that was and it's not going to change him anyway so just let it alone." Wrong way to react! I really was angry. What that did was begin to build a wall between us as I found that I no longer felt the same about him. I really tried to avoid him. Some time later I was sitting out on the deck of a cabin where we were taking a vacation. I like to sit out with my coffee and headphones on listening to music. What happened was that his favorite song came on the tape and it was as if I was slammed in the stomach with all this emotion. I started sobbing as I remembered what he had done and began to pour out to God what I really felt. I didn't have any idea that stuff was still in there. I thought it had all been dealt with. For me, there was a specific point in time when God said; "ok, now we are going to deal with this!" This started the process of forgiving him. I knew things were better the next time I saw him because I was actually glad to see him and went up and gave him a big hug. Before this I would have tried to avoid him. The point is, the offense did matter, big time!

Now some of you may be asking; did you ever confront him and tell him how he had hurt you? The answer is no. I didn't feel I needed to, I didn't feel any strong prompting from God to do that. This is very important. It is not necessary to go to the person who has hurt you and tell them you forgive them for hurting you. Many times that will cause them hurt, especially if they didn't even realize you had been hurt. My counsel is to deal with it between you and God and if He very clearly tells you to go then do so, otherwise leave it with Him.

In part three we will look at the consequences and how we walk through forgiveness.

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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