So, where do we go from here? Well, today is Palm Sunday and Holy Week has begun. This sacred week of remembrance is so much about forgiveness. I can't imagine what it would be like to give my life for people who hurt me. That's what Jesus did, after all. When you get down to it, that's the moral of the story. He gave his life for people who deserved to die and He took their-OUR-place. He was even forgiving the soldiers as they killed Him. Can you imagine? I can't even forgive someone for cutting me off in traffic some days and He was forgiving them as he was being tortured! I need to grow up!
So listen, think about the person that has hurt you most in your life. How many times do you think that person has offended you. Five times? Fifty times? Five hundred times? It's possible that it's many, many times, depending on the type of relationship you have had with them. So, here's another question: How many times have you offended God? I don't know about you, but I have offended God thousands and thousands of times. And guess what! God can forgive me and He has pre-offered His forgiveness to me in advance, no matter how many times I decide to sin. Think about that for a minute. I have been pre-approved for a no limit credit account of sin and offenses with a 100% debt forgiveness plan-IF I am willing to claim it. This may seem like a a ridiculous way to explain, but I want to get it across to you how RIDICULOUS God's love and forgiveness is!
Please, as you go about this Holy Week, draw close to Jesus in your woundedness. Some of us have such deep pain, we can't imagine letting it go. Nothing can ever replace what was taken from us. Nothing can make it up to us. And it is hard to imagine what it would be like to truly let it go. To truly forgive. To love someone who hurt us. However, we love and serve a God of mercy and unconditional love. I can hear the arguments right now.
-I can never go back to that hurtful place in my heart.
-I don't want to think about it.
-They don't deserve it.
-They might hurt me if I start a relationship with them again.
-fill-in-the-blank
Well, here are some answers to those questions:
1-We go back to that hurtful place all the time-every time we remember it! Unresolved issues have a way of clinging to us and creeping up when we least expect it.
2-We think about it all the time because that's how wounds work. It's always in the background whether we realize it or not. It can eventually become consuming and we see everything through that experience.
Here's a scripture about #1 and #2-"See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many."-Hebrews 12:15
3-Of course they don't deserve it. We don't deserve forgiveness either! That's the whole point isn't it? The level of how little we deserve God's love and forgiveness is directly proportionate to the extreme awesomeness of God's love!
4-No one is asking you to start up a relationship with someone who hurt you. God just wants us free of unforgiveness so we can be FREE! 2 Corinthians 3:17 says that "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." All throughout the Bible, God was trying to get his people out of slavery; literal slavery, sexual slavery, slavery to self, slavery to sin, slavery to idols, the list goes on and on. On the flip-side of that coin, Satan wants us to be in bondage-and unforgiveness is one of his most powerful tools-THAT WE GIVE HIM.
I had a painful experience once where I watched someone die that had hurt me more than anyone else in the world had. This was a slow painful death that lasted for several years. When I was younger, I prayed so hard that this person would change. Also, to be very honest I hoped that they would realize how they much had hurt me and make it up to me. Well, you know what? That person eventually did say they were sorry and it wasn't enough for me. I did work to forgive them, but i'm human and it kept creeping up on me. (that's okay, i'm human and forgiveness is a process) I felt better at times, but they couldn't make up all that they had taken from me or take away my pain.
Here's what I learned from this: After all the years of pain, I finally got my apology and it wasn't enough. I was kind of shocked. And guess what else? They didn't start being perfect after that. Can you believe it? What's going on here? They apologized, I forgave them, and things didn't start being the way I wanted them. Wow! Why couldn't they make things better? I believe it's because I had let them have a place in my life where only God should be. I had let the hurts and wounds control me by hanging on to them. I had made that person an idol. Why should I expect people to never hurt me? I have hurt people, but I guess I think other people shouldn't do that? It sounds like I was putting myself on a pedestal as well! Who am I?
What's more is that I was also expecting someone who is NOT God to do things that only God can do. Only God can heal my heart. Only God can take what is broken in my life and make all things new. Only God can give me peace. God can do things for me that I cannot do for myself. And who can do things better than God? Apparently, I thought I could. Lord, have mercy.
In the end, I watched this person suffer unimaginable pain that took away every ounce of my desire to wish any more revenge on them or atonement from them. And at the last moments of life I held this person and God gave me the grace to love as if nothing had ever happened. Bonus: God even gave me the grace to ask for forgiveness for all that I had done that was hurtful in any way. And all of heaven rejoiced.
It's still a process of forgiveness for me because sometimes the effects of people's offenses live on long after they do, but God is helping and healing me. He is delivering me from the bondage of unforgiveness and bitterness and bringing me into freedom as often as I will invite him into the pain and CHOOSE to forgive. Regardless of how I feel. Expecting nothing in return but the peace of God. Trusting that God will make all things right if I surrender to His will. It's not perfect. It's not over. But the journey has begun.
Please share with me how God has helped you to forgive. We need to hear each other's stores of experience, strength, and hope. Have a blessed Holy Week!
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