What Is Forgiveness???

Today I had 2 very unrelated conversations with folks that are feeling the sting of having been deeply hurt by someone they love. In both conversations the topic of forgiveness came up, and it's gotten me thinking...

For a long time now I've seen people come to those points in life where they have to choose to forgive, or go head long into bitterness. No, bitterness isn't necessarily what they are consciously choosing, but it is the natural outcome of NOT choosing to forgive. Easy to say, we learn some of this very early on in church. The hard part is when you have been left naked, and cold on the inside, and you are faced with the reality that in the economy of God's Kingdom, forgiveness is a given.

Well, what is forgiveness anyway? What does it mean? What does it look like? What will it feel like? Will it make me feel any better? What does it mean for the offending party?

I can remember the first time I was confronted with a REAL need to forgive a party. A godly man came to me and said "Stace' you MUST forgive ........" I remember crying and snapping back "How much better will I feel after I do THAT, and how is that going to make my life any better NOW"? This poor fellow really didn't have the answers for me. That's okay, I wasn't really listening yet. I was just mad, mad as all get out, and underneath that, hurt, very hurt!!! The Lord knew my heart was to do what He wanted, and had already placed a godly couple as Sunday School Teachers (he was a counselor with the Fire Dept.) in my life to begin to answer some of the deepest questions of my broken heart, and busted up life. I told him how mad I was that this other fellow told me I had to forgive the offending party. He agreed with the guy. How dare He? He was supposed to be on my side! He cared too much to not shed light on the path to true freedom. It would be yrs. before I really began to "get it".

I went to the Fire Station where my SS teacher worked many afternoons to talk out much of the confusion I faced, and begin to pursue the deepest questions I had about forgiveness. He was reading Bold Love by Dan Allender at the time, and it gave him so many good answers to faithfully put in front of me. I can remember being told "Forgiveness only opens the door to the restoration of the relationship, upon the other person's repentance". Okay, that sounds good enough. Provides me with some safety there, I can accept that. Easy enough. Nope, not enough! That still doesn't answer "What is forgiveness?".

I truly have come to believe that forgiveness is giving up my right to "pay somebody back" or punish someone when they hurt or offend me. It doesn't stop there. I believe true biblical forgiveness accepts Christ's shed blood on the cross as ENOUGH for the sin against me that I may well want to ''handle" myself. That isn't always easy, and only becomes easier with practice. OUCH!!! The cool thing is that we aren't just "dropping it" we're accepting Christ's payment of shed blood as enough to satisfy our demand for retribution, and then the debt no longer involves us. It's between the offending party, and The Father. This is where the healing in my emotions BEGINS. It takes time, but will happen. I'm then able to go on and continue to love, I'm free from bitterness and it's defiling impact, if a relationship has been broken, I can be free to remain open to restoration upon the other person's repentance. I'm free to love, and truly free to heal.

Forgiveness will be necessary to give and receive for the rest of our lives. More than anything, in understanding what forgiveness is, I've come to a much greater appreciation of just what it really means that I've been forgiven, and see that the cross isn't just a neat thing for us to talk about at church, or claim to "go to Heaven". It's a nitty, gritty reality.

What a sweet, sweet Savior!!!