I have been a student of forgiveness for nearly 33 years. From the time Christ called me it was the first thing He began to deal with and we still have frequent lessons on the subject. As I learned how to forgive I came to realization that forgiveness has absolutely nothing to do with the person who has wronged us. Absolutely. Nothing.
The person is not required to be sorry. He is not obligated to apologize. He does not even have to acknowledge his offense or admit he was wrong. He can go about his life without showing any remorse or regret for having abused, molested, offended, hurt, stolen from us, murdered, lied about, betrayed—you get the picture.
Forgiveness has absolutely nothing to do with the offender—and everything to do with us. We are required to forgive. (Matthew 6:14; Matthew 11:26). And why wouldn’t we want to?
Unforgiveness in our hearts is like a cancer that rots and infects all areas of our lives. It makes us utterly miserable and out of touch with love of Christ. Eventually it will ruin us—just as all sin does.
Over the course of my life I have been cruelly abused — sexually and emotionally. Before Christ rescued me, I was a festering in a cesspool of unforgiveness; swimming in thoughts of revenge, hate and even murder. I was a fake person, hiding what I really felt about life and my abusers.
Christ lifted me out of that filthy, lonely place and slowly began to wipe away the muddy bitterness. He literally saved me from what I would have been had He not taken notice of me.
Jesus dealt with my unforgiveness and taught me how to walk in that path. It is process. It is an attitude.
It is not simply a moment in time that one says “I forgive you” and that is that. It does begins that way—with a choice to forgive. But it continues on a course of constantly choosing to forgive. And depending on the offense it may take a long time for the process to be complete—possibly a lifetime.
I’ve heard people say, “I forgive them—but I will never forget.” Why not? God did.
Scripture tells us He takes our sins and drops them into the Sea of Forgetfulness and He remembers them no more. It is not that God has a lapse of memory. The idea here is He doesn’t choose to recall it. He chooses not to visit it or live there. He chooses not to dwell on it. He doesn’t dig it up out of the water to look at it again and again. He chooses not to make our offenses His way of life. And if we are Christ followers—we must follow Him in this example.
Now what I am not saying is that we must again put ourselves in a situation to be abused, molested, insulted—whatever—again. If someone comes into your home and steals from you, you do not hand them the keys to your house. Forgiving someone and trusting someone are two very different things. And although an act of forgiveness can work a miracle sprouting a relationship that results in trust it would take time and testing.
God instructs us to forgive our transgressors because He knows it benefits us. And He loves us too much to let us sink in bitterness when He has so much more for us. He wants to develop our character to resemble Christ. So that we can serve Him and be an example to a lost world.
Forgiveness has absolutely nothing to do with the offender. It has everything to do with us and our relationship with Christ. It is liberating—why wouldn’t we want to be free?
