And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.
OK so today i am dealing with a painful subject. A truth that at least for me is a hard pill to swallow at times. Forgiveness. It is one of the most difficult things to do because it requires complete trust in the Lord. Forgiveness is the ultimate hands-off experience. Once in which we cannot take action on our own against the one who wronged us, even though it would be easy to justify. When we forgive we must trust that God is greater than we are and is going to take care of the judgement on the other person(s) and also of us for the rest of our lives after the wrong has been done. That is a lot of trust. Especially if taking revenge is right in our grasp and we know how we would do it and when. Even the simplest of actions such as not speaking to someone or not looking at someone.
There are a lot of misconceptions in our world today about what it really means to forgive. There is also the infamous phrase "forgive and forget" We are taught that smelly principle from childhood and it isn't right. There are many things that we will go through in life that require forgiveness, and also prevents us from forgetting or even requires us to remember. Forgiveness does not equal trust. FORGIVENESS DOES NOT EQUAL TRUST!! Trust is a separate issue and can happen after forgiveness and most often does: however you can have forgiveness with out it. I think it is important to understand this principle because a lot of times we feel like if we can't "feel" that trust for someone that hurt us that that means we haven't forgiven them and we spend a lot of time feeling guilty and trying to fix it. When in reality, our forgiving that person has nothing to do with how we feel about what they did or if they would do it again. Here is my favorite way to define forgiveness:
Forgiveness is agreeing to live with the pain, inconvenience, loss, etc that the action caused us with out treating the other person badly because of it. It is saying: I will not hold this against you, I will trust God to take care of me, I will not take action to punish you for what you did.
Here is where the trust comes in. As Psalms 139:16 tells us, our days were fashioned for us before we were born. So then, everything that happens to us in our day is known by God and is planned for by God. He has promised us he will care for us protect us and fight for us. It is our relationship with him that builds the trust necessary for us to forgive someone. There will be times when someone else's action will cause irreparable damage, actions that we will never forget, actions maybe that require us to remember so that we don't get lured into a trap that will be life changing. We can forgive them and yet still never trust them again, This is true of people who sexually abuse others. the victim can forgive that person, trusting God to comfort, teach, heal etc, and yet never be able to trust the one who abused them. See?
I think we have a real problem among Christians today who are taught (and teach their children) that forgiveness means you just say "oh its ok" and you put on a smile and you make nice. we have superficial relationships in the church because of this and it causes weakness. When the church and christians are attacked, they will fall if they don't have true unity. We have forgotten the teachings, clear teachings, in God's word about true forgiveness, Godly confrontation, resulting in being closer to God and real with each-other, bringing true, long-lasting unity among the brethren!
How is Ephesians 4:32 possible? Well in light of Psalms 139:16, get close to the God of the universe, who is powerful enough to create life and sustain it, who made a way for humans to commune with God, who takes our sin, our pain, our lives and brings to it power, love, unity, comfort, and the gift of communication! Follow him, don't take action against others who have hurt you, but trust their punishment and your own needs to him!!
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