FORGIVEN

First of all, to even begin to contemplate forgiving someone else, especially when the unforgiveness is rooted in the legitimate abuse and trauma, you have to understand that you are forgiven first and foremost.

Why would I start with this? What does forgiving others have to do with me personally knowing I am forgiven?

Please read on see if it all makes sense.

Contrary to popular belief, I do not think God ever requires something of us that we ourselves have not yet experienced. This is why sometimes some people  come across as hypocrites because they are preaching something it seems they have not  personally dealt with yet. Let’s get it right, it isn’t true that they actually do not believe what they are saying but they may be in a state of cognitive dissonance, (believing, thinking and saying one thing but actually doing and more importantly living something else). I believe this occurs when people have not tested and tasted the mechanics of that thing themselves. Christians call this having a revelation of something. This is akin to reading the word and having new insight open up or jump at you that you did not know before which will help shed more light on a situation you are currently going through or praying about. This revelation means the word literally comes alive in you and gives new meaning to your life. In other words, you experience it. Once you experience something, it no longer theoretical but a part of you. Cognitive dissonance is the opposite, you experience in the matter that concerns you is limited therefore your responses are also limited and you are likely to respond or most likely react in the state you say you are not in, instead of the state you actually are in.

Some people preach and talk about the Love of God but their lives do not reflect that love, not because internally they do not believe in God’s love but actually because they have not yet experienced or allowed themselves experience the realities of that love which solely comes from intimacy with God Himself. It is not that people should not preach or teach. However, there is more to be said from teaching from a place of some experience with God and His Word. And this, at the end of the day, is what Christ wants for us, an intimacy with God as our Father. To live as if God is now our Father because of faith in everything Christ endured to bring us back to that place of intimacy with our Creator. Christ came to reveal God as Father to us, and we lose out when we try to win His approval or love, He already loved us enough and that is enough. Dear reader, I am still learning to live with this fact so you aren’t alone.

Once more, what does this have to do with forgiveness? I will reiterate that you have to know what it feels like to be forgiven to ever be able to truly forgive. I will try to guide you through what I learnt in the process of forgiveness. If you read my  last two posts, you can probably tell I had a lot to forgive many people for, especially the ex-husband, but what did I have to be forgiven for? You may have sussed that out from my last post. I was into a lot, and I did a lot, I was no shrinking violet. Never have been, never will be, but now that strength is being channelled through a much gentler and much more useful source. The Holy Spirit, my best friend.

Don’t give up me yet because I just called the Holy Spirit my best friend, it is a firm truth in my reality and I will expand on my relationship with God and the understanding of His Personality and different aspects of His Personality as the blog progresses. Stay awhile, and we’ll continue to share experiences.

I came about all this information through the leading of the Holy Spirit: I did a ton of research on forgiveness through The youversion bible app: there are many studies on forgiveness on  there and also by studying the incredible life of Corrie Ten Boom. I listened to many sermons, one by Pastor Godman Akinlabi about Loving the Unlovable. Steven Furtick and his wife Holly Furtick’s sermons also really helped. I also went through the Bible in the Year and some of the Alpha Course by Nicky and Pippa Gumbel. Please also read the new book by Patricia King: Live Unoffendable. Now, like I said, The Holy Spirit led me in this study on the principles of forgiveness. I did not go it alone, and what I needed was provided especially for me. Please start praying for the leading of the Holy Spirit. He will change your life.

This is what I learned:

1)Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same.

2)The other person does not have to apologise and does not even need to understand the depth at which they have hurt you.

3)True forgiveness is only possible by the power of the Holy Spirit in you. You will slip, you will fall, you will remember, oh how you will remember, but through it all God will help you if you allow Him.

4) However, as with everything, the Holy Spirit led me through a journey in the word, and then I applied all I learnt to real life events and real people. The word was, has been, and continues to be tested in my life. Remember our discussion above the Word coming alive and actually living the word of God? Well, this is one of the ways we live the word, when it is applied to real-life situations and people.

The problem, or one of the many problems with unforgiveness is that it does not get better on its own, those feelings and emotions do not go away, time does not heal it, ever. That’s another lie by the way, that time heals all wounds. I strongly believe rather than heal all wounds, time distorts, contorts and allows us to hide and wounds whilst using those same wounds to dictate our thoughts, decisions, and actions. Trauma can and has been shown to change people’s personality, robbing them of their core-selves as a way to survive everything that has happened to them. People pleasing is a trauma response or, at the very least, a response to some dysfunction. It is not anyone’s “natural character,” neither is narcissism.

What actually happens is that unforgiveness evolves into an ugliness that continues to seep into other aspects of a person’s life and eventually changes the personality of that person. Remember that the function of  abuse and trauma usually results in the loss of identity.  And the taking on of a different persona or identity created to protect the psyche from the effects and consequences of the abuse. You will essentially and eventually become someone you or the people around you no longer recognise if you do not stop and address the issues arising from the trauma and abuse . It is usually a gradual change unless there are underlying physiological issues that the abuse or trauma triggers. The root cause, though, is always bitterness brought on by fear and anger about the abuse, towards the abuser or even turned towards oneself for “allowing” the abuse or not speaking up. Bitterness is contagious. It touches and infects everything. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. Hebrews 12:15. Bitterness is always fed by unforgiveness. We truly have to forgive to be free.

The people who did not cause the harm  become victims who have to suffer the consequences, and in turn, the hurt and harm are perpetuated until most people in that circle are trapped in bitterness that changes them all. If you look at the history of abuse, abusers were usually abused people, this by no means gives anyone a get out of jail free card but the reason why the saying “hurt people hurt people” is a cliché is because it is true.

Now let’s delve deeper as Christians into the  spiritual consequences of unforgiveness through the parable of Christ in Matthew 18:34-35:

In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Matthew 18:34-35 NIV

What does this verse actually have to do with someone who is genuinely unable to forgive some very real and legitimate grievances or even someone who has decided that they will never be able to forgive every or any wrong done to them? What happens then and how does this verse help.

 Let us go back to the beginning of this Parable to carefully examine it contextually.

The preceding verses talk about how an employer had completely forgiven the huge amount owed by a worker and then that same worker who could not forgive a much smaller debt owed by a friend.  This same friend had begged to be given more time to repay his small debt but was refused the request by his said friend. This would be like your bank forgiving you on a 60-year mortgage without requiring you to pay any interests on the principal sum or even paying anything on the principal when you couldn’t pay your mortgage on time instead of foreclosing on your only home. Then on your way from the bank after all this wonderful stuff has happened to you, you bump into your friend who owes you $5 for a coffee you bought him 2 days ago.  You then start harassing him for the money to the point you have him thrown in jail even though he promises to pay you back next week after he gets paid at work. Then your bank happens to find out what you just did on the SAME day they forgave your mortgage. What do you think they would do to you after this?

This is the pre-text to the Matthew 18 verse above, the Master (in this case God) became very angry because He had PREVIOUSLY  forgiven the slave (servant) so the expectation the Master had of the slave was just and fair. This is to further emphasise that God can and should expect you to forgive others no matter what has been done to because He has forgiven you. I told you this is a hard pill to swallow.

We do not have to agree with God for His laws and principles to be true. However what I am attempting to do is to simply explain why we should actually live by the values we say we live by no matter how hard it starts because of the freedom at the end of our obedience. This is the reason I started with such a long and personal introduction into my own story of living in unforgiveness and how taking this step changed has my life and how it may help you too enter into a true freedom and to remain there.

This is not for someone who has not yet experienced the saving grace of Christ’s saving grace. This not for someone who does not KNOW that all their sins have been forgiven, or someone who has not experienced what it feels to KNOW that all their sins, debts, their inclinations, secret and not so secret coping mechanisms, grievances, the harm they have caused to others or themselves, every misstep, misdeed intentional and unintentional have ALL been forgiven.

This means that in the eyes of God, and in wherever such records are kept, all of these have been totally wiped out through the blood of Jesus and the finished works of Christ on the cross. There is no more record of anything wrong you have done, ever. It no longer exists, and therefore, it no longer holds any weight. Nothing you have done is to be held against you in the world or in the heavens again because Jesus became a sacrificial lamb for you. So God is saying that if you have received Christ, and accepted in faith He died for you truly, you are no longer liable for the consequences of your actions in heavenly realms and you can pray for his mercy and leniency for the brunt of the effects of your actions here on earth on yourself and others. You no longer stand condemned. You are forgiven because God now sees you as Jesus, the one who had no sin but died for you. This is an unfair advantage as far as the world is concerned, people will always want to remind you, pull you back into that old life and old way of thinking and old ways of  doing things. However here’s the not to secret secret: the more you hold on to your faith and declare the blood of Jesus and accept that indeed it has washed your sins away, the more you have the power inside you through the Holy Spirit to RESIST the siren call to participate in things you no longer want to or be identified with what you no longer want to identified with, do you see the freedom in all this, the true freedom?  You can literally drop every burden and be unfettered from the woes that come along with those horrible burdens that eat away at your internal life. This FREEDOM, though, is all predicated on the forgiveness God gave us through Christ, and your own responsibility is to forgive others so they are no longer able to hold you captive in any way. They are no longer able to dictate your reactions and responses. You can truly live unburdened and free.

What a marvellous thought.

What does that mean for you?

God is fair and just, He does not ever expect you to be able to give something you have never experienced the truth of yet. He does not expect you to give what you do not have because He knows you simply cannot, it is an impossible expectation and unattainable standard to hold any human being to, He knows our frailties and acknowledges them and knows us for what we are. And because God is also just, once you have experienced His saving grace He expects you to be able to extend that same grace, albeit in a much smaller measure compared to His grace.(disclaimer: there is obviously no comparison with God but for context purposes I deign to make such a comparison, may God have mercy on me if this is ultimately wrong but this is just for illustrative purposes).

When your mind has been opened up to the concept of forgiveness and you have understood the tenets of forgiveness in the kingdom of God, through the experience of Christ on the cross of calvary, the price He paid for you, what He gave up to become man, to be subject to the pains and limitations of the flesh of the natural man. Once you understand that He then ultimately willingly lay down His life for the whole of humanity included but not limited to yourself, people He didn’t know of in His mortal body but knew of in His Divinity. Once you understand He bore all this shame which in the end meant nothing to Him; been beaten and hung and nailed on a cross like a common criminal, once you understand that He gave up His very life, His life- blood for the forgiveness of your sins to be accepted and allowed back into the very Presence of God Almighty, the Creator of the Universe to be able to be commune with Him as Father to child and as His beloved like He originally intended when the world was created. Once you have tasted this bitter pill and deeply understood the sweetness that comes at the end, your salvation, the forgiveness of all your sins no matter how terrible or unforgivable, all wiped clean.

Once you understand this depth of this simple fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God who was dwelling in Heaven until the Time He decided that it was time to save humanity from themselves and the laws and sins they had become accustomed to, to save and forgive them.

Then, you will begin to see the fairness in the expectation of this type of forgiveness. This comes after the life-changing  experiences of being forgiven. You will then learn to start to forgive the unforgivable. Forgiveness  does not excuse the abuse and frankly inhumane experiences most of humanity have been subjected to usually in the hands of those who should have protected them or who should have known better. When we later in the blog posts look at the concept of Restitution, we will delve further into the reality that forgiveness does not and has never excused the behaviour that causes harm. As we discussed earlier, forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation. There must be repentance(which means stopping the behaviour that caused the rift in the relationship) on the part of the perpetrator before reconciliation can ever happen.

Remember this though, ultimately this is not about your abuser, this is about your freedom from the consequences of harm and abuse and societal or familial dysfunction.

So I have written about why we should forgive scripturally.

Now here are the practical steps and prayers I actively did when I started the process of forgiveness. It starts out extremely hard to do. Don’t fret or give up. Expect failure when trying out something you’ve never done before. Give it time, and like me, as the Holy Spirit in-dwells you and teaches you, you’ll find it becomes easier and easier to forgive.

Here’s a guide that’s very similar to what I did in the process.

1) Decide and be very intentional about forgiving the offender.

2) Find a quiet place. Once you’ve found a quiet place where you can be alone with God, here’s what to do.

3)Assess the damage: It hurt me when he/ she. . . . It made me feel (embarrassed, abandoned, rejected, etc.) . . .

4)Choose to forgive and release the debt: But I choose, as an act of my will, because I am a forgiving person in Christ, to forgive him/ her and release him/ her from anything that he/ she owes me, even if he/ she does it again.

5) Remember your choice: Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, for the opportunity to forgive (name of offender). I ask you to remind me, in the moments I need it the most, of this decision I made today. (Note: Some people prefer to place an empty chair in front of them and imagine the offender sitting in it. Then they speak directly to the offender in the empty chair, saying, “It hurt me when. . . .”)

Did you notice that the forgiveness statement says “even if he/ she does it again”? Of course, this does not mean that we want it to happen again. Neither does it mean that what the person did to us was okay. It simply means that we are fully forgiving them with an unconditional release from anything they owe us, with no strings attached. This is the only real way to move forward and experience healing from past hurts inflicted by those around us.

(adapted from the book The Hurt & the Healer by Andrew Farley and Bart Millard).

I will also say something that may be controversial, but I try to make it a daily practice to forgive every offence I come across, real or imagined. I allow the Holy Spirit work in me to expose those who I am holding secret offence towards, I try to allow the Holy Spirit show me my feelings and emotions towards someone, it could be something someone said that rubbed me off the wrong way, a snide comment that I laughed off but was actually offensive. I actively choose to forgive them and myself for somethings I feel I unjustly let people get away with. I do this as I take stock of my day before going to bed.                    When you forgive this man, I forgive him, too. And when I forgive whatever needs to be forgiven, I do so with Christ’s authority for your benefit, 11 so that Satan will not outsmart us. For we are familiar with his evil schemes. 2 Corinthians 2:10-11.

For this I say this simple prayer: Heavenly Father, I thank you for today and all the wonderful things and people I came across and all the beauty and nice surprises that came my way to fill me up! I am sorry for what I said or did to (name the person and what you may have done). I ask you to forgive me and ask that you help them forgive me. I also pray to forgive (name the person) for (what they did). I ask for mercy for them and between us, and I let every offence and unforgiveness go in Jesus’ Name, and I receive Your Peace in it’s place. I ask for the blood of Jesus to wash that place clean and for the Holy Spirit to work the situation out for both our good and fill me up in the places I may have lost something. I pray mercy and peace for everyone involved in Jesus Name. Amen.

Repeat as needed. I believe that’s seventy times seven times. Matthew 18:22.

You got this!