Forgiveness (Part 1)

 

I'm Angry

Have you ever witnessed or been at the receiving end of some injustice? Most of us are justifiably offended, perhaps angry, about something… or, unfortunately, someone. Certainly the world seems to be a more angry and bitter place. Corruption and injustice. Road rage. Hypersurveillance and social media. Epidemics and natural disasters. Cancel culture. Christians divided over doctrine, or worse, over political party. And I still have to buy food this month?

You like mood music? Check out “Anger Management by Lecrae and This’l”

I’m not saying that what you’re experiencing isn’t legitimate, I’m saying it’s causing us pain and dysfunction, and some of us may be silently, slowly bleeding out on the inside. When our offenses are not effectively attended to, it creates a state of unforgiveness resulting in many of our ills: emotional, mental, physical.

You see, forgiveness is more for you than for them. I mean, they can and will benefit in the long run from your forgiveness, but the one I’m trying to save is you.

I know the Word of God commands me to forgive. And I do! Or do i? Forgiveness, like love, is one of the commonly over-utilized and poorly understood principles of the Word of God that, when we fail to utilize correctly, results in misunderstanding, pain, and even further bondage.

The Offense

When we witness, or we’re at the receiving end of, something that is wrong we can become offended. I have been perceiving offense since I can remember. Because of the self life within me, since the time that someone took a beloved rattle away from, I have received offense.

It doesn't even have to happen to us, we can perceive offense when the event happens to someone else. What we do with that offense is based on the condition of our heart. We have a judgment call to make when an offense first occurs, and that is to dismiss it, or let the event dig in deeper and chew on it, and in that moment we are in an offended state.

An offended state is a perceived wrong which potentially disrupts the flow of love; be it, familial, friendship, fellowship, or the bond of common humanity, that is between us. Becoming offended is not a sin - it’s built in us to dislike injustice. It is our reaction to the offense that can become sinful. We can resolve it peacefully within ourselves, extend reconciliation towards the offender, or we can become angry. In a related article, “Am I Angry at God?,” I shared that “anger is a passionate and active response of the entire person to a real or perceived wrong (or an offense).” Paul states “be angry and sin not (Eph 4.26).” A lot of this flies beneath the surface of our awareness because we’re good at processing that kind of stuff really fast. Fearfully and wonderfully made, and all that.

Offenses can be real or imagined - projections of our sense of right and wrong based on a perceived situation, especially when I don’t know all the circumstances. Dealing with these offenses-at-a-distance only requires that I forgive, even if I don't confront the offending party. This is a unilateral action of forgiveness and is about maintaining my peace. For example if I witness a parent gently but firmly swat a child in a grocery store and I don't know what happened. It’s not my crying child, but at that moment I am tempted to be offended and the answer is to forgive, to release the parent from the debt of offense in my mind. This allows me to continue my day in peace and avoids anger towards that parent in particular.

More often, it is my responsibility to confront an offending person, especially when they are believers, regardless of whether they have offended intentionally or not. It’s my responsibility to go to them and explain my offense and allow them the opportunity to be fully reconciled to me. If that doesn't work, I am to take witnesses, and then bring it before church leadership.

It’s important that we forgive to restore the sense of relationship between us. Far too often, for any number of reasons, we don't do this. When this happens, our hearts spiral into a state of unforgiveness.

Sometimes we feel like we don’t have a right to confront the offender or we fear the repercussions. This happens particularly where the power scales in the relationship are different: a child with a parent, a student with a bully, an employee with a boss, a congregant with a church leader, a person in an unbalanced “love” relationship. Or perhaps we feel that we contributed too much to cause the offense, and we somehow deserved the offense.

But confronting our offender is critical, beloved. When our offenses are not effectively attended to, it creates a state of unforgiveness which can generate bitterness and hatred. I don’t want you to feel guilty or condemned about the things of the past, but it is time to learn how to start dealing with the sharp, painful, pointy shards of unforgiveness that seemingly choke out our love walk and cause us to lose faith in others… and ourselves.

I’d like for you to read Matthew 18 chapter as we start digging into why forgiveness is so pivotal to us as believers.

photo credit: Louise Hay, Forgiveness (CC BY-SA 2.0)