During a recent spate of time when my mind was free to think with virtually limitless scope, I ended up pondering forgiveness again.
Forgiveness is both wonderful and terribly difficult. I could say that it is wonderful to receive forgiveness and terribly difficult to extend it, but even that is not strictly true. Forgiveness extended can be the most tremendous, freeing release you will ever experience. At the same time, accepting forgiveness, particularly from God, can be almost impossibly difficult when you live in a place of shame and regret.
The other day, as I pondered, I realized that I sometimes struggle to forgive when I feel that someone's sin against me made me extra prone to sin against someone else. When I feel unforgiven, full of guilt and regrets, I also feel hindered in my ability to forgive those whom I feel ought to share some of the shame I am under. Notice how many times I have used the word, "feel" in the preceding sentences of this paragraph:
I feel that someone's sin against me contributed to my participation in sin.
I feel guilty, regretful, and unforgiven for the sin I committed.
I feel that these people ought to share my shame and my blame.
I feel unable to forgive, to let them off the hook, because I feel like I am still on the hook, and they had a part in putting me there.
Our feelings are not to be trusted. Feelings are not bad, but neither are they trustworthy. They are what they are, and we need to learn to deal with them. This is very important. We cannot merely invalidate our negative feelings and say, "These feelings are irrational; therefore, I do not accept these feelings." Feelings do not evaporate when we try to stuff them down. Stuffed feelings grow into terrible things: depression, heart disease, headaches, nausea, insomnia, random emotional outbursts, and even cancer.
Negative feelings are not the only ones that lead us into danger. Sometimes we reap positive feelings from doing things we ought not do, and thus fall into the trap of following our deceitful hearts right down a corridor to death ("... With her smooth talk she compels him. All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast... he does not know that it will cost him his life." ~Proverbs 7:21-23).
We need to be self-aware, or, as the Bible says, we need to examine ourselves. When we feel something, we need to acknowledge and identify what we feel. At the same time, we must not allow our feelings to master us. Fortunately, in identifying our feelings and contemplating them, we actually begin the path of mastering them.
The Bible does not tell us it is wrong to be afraid. The Bible tells us that when we are afraid we should trust in God and cast our anxieties on Him (Psalm 56:3, 1 Peter 5:7). The Bible does not command us never to be angry. The Bible tells us that when we are angry, we should not sin, and we should work to resolve our disputes without delay. The Bible does not tell us it is wrong to be tempted to sin. The Bible tells us that when we are tempted, we should look to the supremacy of Christ, asking and trusting that He will show us a way of escape.
When I feel unforgiven, I may not immediately identify the feeling for what it is. I may think I feel hurt, or cross, or perhaps anxious. I may be annoyed with someone, or have a dread of going somewhere. The enemy of our souls does not want us to identify when we feel unforgiven, because God has a powerful truth for us to use to combat that lie: God showed His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
The truth is, sin weaves an intricate and elaborate web all around us. We are constantly influenced by the sins of others, and even by the second- and third- and fourth-hand sins of others, just as others are influenced by our sins and the disastrous ripples all sin has produced throughout history. Our only hope is in the righteousness of Christ. He lifts our sin off us, and grants us His perfect righteousness in exchange, infusing our mortal beings with His own perfect Holy Spirit, who takes up residence in us, changing us from one degree of glory to another into His own image, over the course of the rest of our lives. In heaven, all sin will be gone, and I don't think we can begin to grasp how amazingly different existence will be with no sin and none of the effects of sin. Sometimes we talk about feeling like we can breathe. When we get to heaven, the Spirit Himself will be our perfect breath, filling our beings with something so much better than oxygen, pure and free and nourishing and mighty. We will have all the ecstasy with no frenzy, and all the calm peace with no languor, and all the power and strength with no selfish impulses. It is going to be beyond all comparison, this weight of glory. We will get there.
But, working in that direction is most often a slow and painstaking process. We are declared righteous through the atoning blood of Christ in a single instant when faith takes root in us. In this instant, we receive His forgiveness and His Spirit enters into our body, mind and spirit. However, following this instant, the ensuing process of becoming righteous in a practical and observable way can sometimes be exceedingly slow. Once in awhile, a new believer takes to the new life with impressively visible and victorious ability, making amazing strides into holiness. But it is much more common for baby Christians to embark on a pathway of stumbles and trip-ups, falling down and getting up again, two steps forward and one step back, practicing perseverance and resilience over and over again.
Not surprisingly, then, as we stumble along we sometimes find ourselves failing to feel forgiven. A few things contribute to this feeling, but two seem to be the most troubling (at least, to me):
(1) We don't feel forgiven when the consequences of our sins linger around us.
As a mother of now-adult children, this is a difficulty for me. When I see places where I failed to help my children develop particular key skills, where I failed to understand their needs, where I failed to reflect the grace of God, I feel overwhelmed with grief for my maternal shortcomings. Never mind that I simply did not own certain skills to pass on, much as I desired to be a good parent. Never mind that the world has changed faster than any of us ever imagined, and it is probably true that I could not possibly have known to watch out for some of the issues that arose. Never mind that it takes a lot of us more than 35 years to attain maturity and wisdom. I see the effects of where I let my children down, and I grieve because the consequences of my shortcomings, my failures, my sins are right in front of my eyes, and I cannot go back and fix them.
I cannot go back and fix anything, but I have a Sovereign God who promises that He is for me, on my side. He promises that He will work all things for good in the end. He has a history of bringing beauty from ashes. I rest in the power of my redeeming Lord and believe Him when He says, "Behold, I am making all things new."
(2) We don't feel forgiven when we sense the condemnation and disapproval of other people. In other words, when other people do not forgive us, it can mess with our ability to feel that God has forgiven us.
Yet, I know my own struggles to forgive. I know how hard it can be, even when I believe that forgiveness is crucial, mandatory, absolutely essential. I know that God requires me to forgive, and I know that withholding forgiveness is not only a sin a against Him, but it is also a fatal poison to my soul, my health and my sanity. If I can know and believe all these truths, and still struggle to forgive, then I must have mercy and compassion for those who withhold forgiveness from me.
I may not feel forgiven, but I must rest in the truth that God has forgiven me in Christ, that the agony of the cross is what Jesus did for me, to "purchase my pardon" as the song says. If I can truly believe, in the depth of my heart, that God has forgiven me, that Christ took the penalty for me, that it has been dealt with and I am free to go on without this load on my back, if I can get this into my inner consciousness, then I will be able to forgive, because I will know that other people's accountability for their sin has absolutely nothing to do with me. This should be a terrific relief, because it works both ways: I am not accountable for their sins either, in the same way that they are not accountable for mine. This is hard for me. I feel responsible, and I want others also to feel responsible. But Jesus, who never sinned and never influenced anyone to sin, Jesus is the one who took responsibility for all our sin.
I do not need to hold people accountable for how they may have influenced me to sin,
because I am not held accountable for those sins,
because Jesus died for all the sins, all of mine, all of theirs,
and it is finished.
For more about forgiveness, check out these posts.
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