Free part 2 - Forgiving

Continuing yesterday’s post concerning the value of gratitude and a forgiving spirit, Gary so graphically wrote last night, “One of my deepest struggles is going beyond the forgiving in my intellect and giving up the bitterness of the soul. First I was unaware, thought I had dealt with all the forgiveness, but then I found the residue of bitterness in my soul poisoning my heart in unknown ways. Forgiveness is an intellectual pursuit until it gets down into our emotions."

The following is adapted from “the view from the juniper tree.”
Why is it so damn hard to forgive? There is nothing easy about forgiving someone who has hurt you, slightly or deeply, and I am sure if you think it is, you are most likely burying the problem, not really forgiving. The problem with mental forgiveness is – it doesn’t work. All intellectural forgivenss amounts to is talk and talk is cheap.

We have to find a way to deal with the conscious or unconscious feelings of hate that we have and just saying we forgive doesn’t get it done. Speaking truth doesn’t always alter feelings. Forgiveness happens only when we first admit our hurt and scream our hate (Lewis Smedes).

For forgiveness to really take place, at some point we have to accept that the past cannot be changed. Forgiveness is so hard because what happened in the past keeps leaking over into the present and making us angry again. The only way to come to terms with reality is to leave the past in the past. Anger is reliving the past and living in the past makes forgivng impossible. We are not our past. We are people fully capable of repenting, changing and turning away from past behaivor.

Sometimes we can really forgive, only to discover later on, there is more forgiveness needed. The new need does not negate the earlier forgiveness it only points out why forgivenss is so hard. We can only forgive what we know right now, we may need to take another run at it again later.

As forgiveness is taking place, we can begin to extend love to those who have hurt us. We begin to see the hurtful person’s value, see where the hurt came from and begin to thank God for how He has used the hurt inflicted, for our ultimate good and the good of others.