Forgiveness: What it Is, What it Isn’t
Megan Breedlove This devotion is the first in a three-part series on forgiveness. Part two can be found here. Part three can be found here.
Forgiveness. For many of us, merely reading this word stirs our emotions. We well remember the offense (or perhaps repeated offenses) that happened, making forgiveness necessary, and the pain of those doesn’t easily subside. Or perhaps the offenses are our own, and we can’t seem to escape the constant awareness of our guilt.
We know the Bible commands us to forgive; we just don’t see how it’s possible to truly let go of what happened. What do we do with the pain and the memories? How can we forgive something we’ll never forget?
They are important questions, and to some of us, the answers matter very deeply. We’ve experienced incredible pain that left its mark on our souls, or perhaps is still leaving marks. We desperately need to know how to live with what hurts so terribly without being destroyed by it. We’ve been told that forgiveness will help us move on. But we don’t know how to forgive, or whether we even can.
In this three-part series, we’ll look at forgiveness. This week, we’ll examine what forgiveness is—and what it isn’t. Next week, we’ll explore how to forgive others, especially when their offenses against us have been immense or are still ongoing. Finally, we’ll learn how to forgive ourselves for things we wish we’d never done, whether we did them by intention or by terrible mistake.
It will be a difficult journey. But the reward for truly learning to forgive will be freedom and healing. Will you walk with me as we begin?
If we want to cook supper, we first need to decide what we’re going to make. Then we’ll know what steps we need to take to prepare it. That’s why we’re going to look first at what forgiveness means. We want to know the end result. Then we can study how to get there.
Let’s take the analogy a bit further. Let’s say we know we want to make a cake, but we’re not sure what kind to make. We might eliminate the first several options we consider: no, I don’t want a German chocolate cake, a vanilla cake, or a strawberry cake. I know—I want a pineapple upside-down cake!
In the same way, we’re first going to discuss what forgiveness isn’t before we talk about what forgiveness is. We want to get some very common misconceptions out of the way so we’re not trying to accomplish something we were never meant to put into place. For example, most of us have probably heard the phrase “forgive and forget”. But that’s not a biblical command. That’s right; the phrase “forgive and forget” does not appear anywhere in the Bible. It’s impossible deliberately to erase memories that have haunted us. We might come to a point where we don’t think about them as often, but we haven’t forgotten them. Fortunately, forgiveness doesn’t mean that we have to forget something happened.
“Wait a minute,” someone might say. “What about that verse that says God removes our sins as far as the east is from the west?” The Bible does, indeed, say that. But that doesn’t mean that God forgets our offenses ever occurred. In fact, His decree that we need His Son directly depends on the fact that He knows we’ve sinned. Even after we’re saved, He doesn’t forget what our sins have been. He well remembers why we need Jesus. Removing our sins means that He relegates them to somewhere they can’t condemn us anymore. If His forgiveness doesn’t mean He forgets, then ours doesn’t have to, either. We can’t forgive “better” than God.
Forgiveness also isn’t saying that the offense really didn’t matter, or that what the person did was okay. What the person did was not okay. It was sin, and sin is never okay. When God forgives us in Christ, He doesn’t say that what we did was just fine. If it were, we wouldn’t need a Savior. Only seeing an offense as unjustifiable can make forgiveness necessary.
One final thing that forgiveness isn’t, is that it isn’t saying that we weren’t hurt by the offense. We don’t have to pretend that the person’s sin (whether someone else’s or our own) had no effect on us. In fact, we must acknowledge the depth of our hurt if we are to truly heal from it. God, of course, doesn’t need to heal, but He does acknowledge the depth of pain our sins have caused Him. Jesus broke down and wept at one point over how Jerusalem had turned from God. He quite clearly demonstrated God’s broken heart over our pain. Likewise, it’s okay for us to admit that we’ve been deeply hurt. It isn’t a sign that we are super-spiritual if we act as if we weren’t hurt; it’s a sign of denial.
Now that we know what forgiveness isn’t, let’s talk about what it is. The simplest way to explain what forgiveness is, is to say it this way: forgiveness means choosing to stop trying to make the person pay for the hurt they have caused you. It’s accepting the fact that you now have pain to live with, but refusing to punish the other person for what he or she has done. It means that you will give up your “rights” to punish the other person, and let God handle the situation.
For example, let’s say that someone steals a precious toy from my son, Kenny. What do I want Kenny to do? Do I want him to find his playmate and pummel him? Do I want Kenny to determine an appropriate punishment and then go administer it? Of course not. I want him to come to me and let me tell him what should be done. In that situation, I would try to help Kenny think about what happened and come up with an appropriate way for him to handle it. I might even help him address it. I would never tell him to go punish the other child himself.
Likewise, when someone commits an offense against us, we should bring it to God. God may direct us to do something to help resolve the situation, such as talk to the person. But He will never tell us to go punish the person ourselves. In other words, He tells us to forgive.
He doesn’t say, “Pretend it never happened.” Nor does He say, “That was no big deal,” or, “That didn’t hurt you.” He simply says, “Okay, you reported it to me. Here’s your part in how to handle it. Let me take care of the rest.”
For most of us, the thought of giving up our rights makes us feel vulnerable. Unprotected. Afraid. But we are never stronger than when we fling ourselves into God’s arms and feel His powerful embrace. We are not unprotected or unsafe. Almighty God Himself holds us close to His heart. He is more than willing—because He loves us—and able—because He’s Almighty God—to do the right thing in our lives. But we’ll never find that out until we try Him.
Let’s think about this for a week and ask God to let it sink deep into our minds and hearts. Let’s ask Him to grant us the grace and willingness to trust Him instead of ourselves. We’ll come back together next week to look at what forgiveness looks like in our relationships with others—and, of course, what it doesn’t look like.
I’ll see you then.
1 Peter 2:23—When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.