By: Sam Storms
“Most of the ground that Satan gains in the lives of Christians,” wrote Neil Anderson, “is due to unforgiveness” (Bondage Breaker, 194). I couldn’t agree more. It isn’t hard to figure out why, once we realize that unforgiveness breeds bitterness, resentment, anger, unkindness, and even despair.
The apostle Paul certainly knew this, which explains his emphasis in Colossians 3:13 where he exhorts us to bear “with one another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
Nothing is more important for us than to know what forgiveness is as well as what it isn’t. So what I propose in this meditation is to look at five myths about forgiveness; that is to say, five lies many of us have embraced about what it means to forgive another person. In the subsequent lesson I’ll turn to five truths about forgiveness, or five essential elements apart from which true forgiveness will never take place.
(1) Contrary to what many have been led to believe, forgiveness is not forgetting. “Forgive and forget,” we have been told by so many through the years. It’s a nice saying, but highly misleading. Why?
First of all, God does not forget, notwithstanding what you think Jeremiah 31:34 is saying (“For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more”). This language of the prophet is metaphor, a word picture, designed to emphasize God’s gracious determination and resolve not to hold us liable for our sin. He has canceled the debt and will never demand payment. If God could literally “forget” it would undermine the truth of his omniscience. God always has and always will know all things, but he has promised never to use our sin against us or treat us as if the reality of our sin were present in his mind.
Second, “forgive and forget”, quite simply, is psychologically impossible. As soon as you make up your mind to forget something you can be assured that, in most instances, it is the one thing that will linger at the forefront of your conscious thinking. We all forget things, but we do it unintentionally over the course of time. Life and experience and old age work to erase certain things from our memory, but that is rarely if ever the case with sins committed against us and the wounds we have suffered.
Third, to think that forgiving demands forgetting can be emotionally devastating. Let’s suppose that Jane succeeds for two months in forgetting Sally’s betrayal of her. She’s getting along well and hasn’t given a second thought to Sally’s sin. Then Jane is told that Sally did the same thing to Mary and she immediately remembers the offense she herself endured. She is suddenly riddled with guilt for having failed to forget. What she thought she had forever put out of her mind now comes rushing back involuntarily and she feels like an utter failure for not having “truly” forgiven her friend. Worse still, she now feels like a hypocrite for having promised to forget only to once again feel anger and resentment toward Sally. Not only is Jane emotionally devastated, she now realizes how impossible it is to literally forget something so painful. This makes her extremely reluctant ever to forgive anyone again, knowing in her heart that she is incapable of forgetting.
(2) Forgiving someone does not mean you no longer feel the pain of their offense. In most cases, the only way you can stop hurting is to stop feeling, and the only way you can stop feeling is to die emotionally. But passionless robots can neither truly love God or others. This may be the primary reason people are reluctant to forgive. They know they can’t stop feeling the sting of the sin against them and they don’t want to be insincere by saying they forgive when deep down inside they know they didn’t.
Let’s suppose that Barbara discovers that her husband Bill has had an affair. The agony and deep feelings of betrayal are intense. Although Barbara seeks extensive counseling, she eventually separates from her husband for a season. Upon their reconciliation, she forgives him, but is under the assumption that for her to do so means she must never again feel the pain of his adultery. Then one evening she sees Bill smiling and talking to another woman at church. Although it was nothing more than innocent friendliness, the anguish and suspicion of his betrayal come rushing back into her soul. She berates herself and questions her own sincerity: “What’s the matter with me that I can’t get over this?” Barbara has to learn that the pain of her husband’s adultery will probably never entirely dissipate, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t truly forgiven him.
(3) Forgiving someone who has sinned against you doesn’t mean you cease longing for justice. Be certain of this: vengeance is not a bad thing! If it were, God would himself be in a bit of trouble, for as Paul tells us, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Romans 12:19). To long for justice is entirely legitimate, but to seek it for yourself is not. Let God deal with the offender in his own way at the appropriate time. He’s much better at it than your or I.
The point is that forgiveness does not mean you are to ignore that a wrong was done or that you deny that a sin was committed. Forgiveness does not mean that you close your eyes to moral atrocity and pretend that it didn’t hurt or that it really doesn’t matter whether or not the offending person is called to account for his/her offense. Neither are you being asked to diminish the gravity of the offense, or to tell others, “Oh, think nothing of it; it really wasn’t that big of a deal after all.” Forgiveness simply means that you determine in your heart to let God be the avenger. He is the judge, not you.
Often we refuse to forgive others because we mistakenly think that to do so is to minimize their sin. “And that’s not fair! He really hurt me. If I forgive, who’s going to care for me and take up my cause and nurse my wounds?” God is. We must never buy into the lie that to forgive means that sin is being whitewashed or ignored or that the perpetrator is not being held accountable for his/her actions. It simply means we consciously choose to let God be the one who determines the appropriate course of action in dealing justly with the offending person.
(4) Forgiveness does not mean you are to make it easy for the offender to hurt you again. They may in fact hurt you again. That is their decision. But you must set boundaries on your relationship with them. The fact that you establish rules to govern how and to what extent you interact with this person in the future does not mean you have failed to sincerely and truly forgive them. True love never aids and abets the sin of another. The offender may himself be offended that you set parameters on your friendship to prevent them from doing further harm. They may even say, “How dare you? This just proves that you didn’t mean it when you said you forgave me.” Don’t buy into their manipulation. Forgiveness does not mean you become a helpless and passive doormat for their continual sin.
(5) Forgiveness is rarely a one-time, climactic event. It is most often a life-long process. However, forgiveness has to begin somewhere at some point in time. There will undoubtedly be a moment, an act, when you decisively choose to forgive. It may well be highly emotional and spiritually intense and bring immediate relief; a sense of release and freedom. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll never need to do it again. You may need every day to reaffirm to yourself your forgiveness of another. Each time you see the person, you may need to say, “Self, remember that you forgave _______!”
There may well be other myths concerning forgiveness, but those are probably the most important ones. In our next study we’ll turn our attention to the essence of true forgiveness.