An Act of the Will

• Forgive: To stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone for an offense, flaw or mistake.

Greater Good Magazine, a UC Berkley publication, says that while it is just as important to define what forgiveness is…it is also important to define what it is not. They state it doesn’t mean to “gloss over what happened or deny the seriousness of the offense.” It does not mean forgetting, condoning or excusing.

Though forgiveness can repair a damaged relationship, it does not obligate reconciliation.

A few nights ago a familiar feeling started sinking into my chest. It was one of pain, remorse, bitterness and sadness. It was a “suck your breath in sharply” sort of pain.

I thought I had moved forward.

I thought it was all in the past.

I thought this feeling was gone.

Have I actually practiced forgiveness? Or was it just empty words that I tried speaking into my heart to feel?

I came to the realization that maybe I haven’t fully forgiven certain things because I still feel like a chain is around my neck.

A chain of uncertainty, hopelessness and pain that isn’t from Jesus. Jesus says “come to me and I will convict and redeem” while Satan speaks words of hopelessness, lies and condemnation that we cannot overcome the bad things that happen to us whether they be self inflicted or inflicted by someone else.

We begin to dehumanize the people that made the offense and I will go one step further and say we can also dehumanize ourselves in the fact that we can’t forgive ourselves either. We deprive ourselves and the offender of positive human qualities and one of those qualities is compassion and lacking compassion towards the people who did us wrong and ourselves leads to bitterness, resentment and hate.

In an article on forgiveness, Corrie Ten Boom said:

• “Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that. And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion–I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”

An act of the will. Does feeling have anything to do with forgiveness?

While forgiveness is powerful, it is an act of extending grace instead of demanding justice. The memories will resurface and you will remember the feelings of betrayal and hurt but those are in the past, you have chosen to forgive and you choose to love.

Choice over feeling.

We may believe that our feelings are complete and utter truth at times, but as I keep moving towards it more and more, I believe that choice is much more stronger, and the hardest part of love and forgiveness, because it makes us come to terms with our humanity, to go right or wrong, to choose to love or hate, to forgive or hold that sin against the offender.

And imagine if Christ forgave as a human does? Oh how terrible salvation would be if it was all based on a feeling, held against us in a form of a grudge and if it truly were based on our standard of justice, we would all have paid our penalty of death.

Ephesians 4:31-32 says:

• “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

I’m ridding myself of my self righteousness, my pride, my anger, the hate…it’s not worth it. The feelings eat me up inside and if I can’t extend the grace that Christ forgave me with, do I even deserve forgiveness myself? Further, if I can’t extend myself grace, is my preconceived notion of justice and grace make me mightier than Christ?  C.S. Lewis once said:

• “I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.”

Forgiveness is an act of the will, regardless of how you feel. It doesn’t mean though that you need to justify the wrong done, it means you defined the pain or wrong done but didn’t let it define who you are becoming – it sets you on a path of healing.

But even though we choose to forgive – it doesn’t mean that hurt won’t come back up again.

Corrie Ten Boom went to see her pastor after she was struggling with forgiving the people she loved that had hurt her. It was unexpected to have a harder time forgiving those she loved than the Nazis that caused her so much grief and loss.  Her pastor said:

• “Up in that church tower,” he said, nodding out the window, “is a bell which is rung by pulling on a rope. But you know what? After the sexton lets go of the rope, the bell keeps on swinging. First ding then dong. Slower and slower until there’s a final dong and it stops. I believe the same thing is true of forgiveness. When we forgive someone, we take our hand off the rope. But if we’ve been tugging at our grievances for a long time, we mustn’t be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while. They’re just the ding-dongs of the old bell slowing down.”

And it is slowing down. In you and me. When we choose to let go of that rope. Sometimes it reverberates in my heart and the sadness and hurt come back in.

But it doesn’t stay forever.

“I forgive you.” I can look in the mirror and say. I say a prayer in the night when the fear, anger and betrayal rise up and the helpless feeling comes over me again. “Redeem me Jesus. Save me from this. Forgive me.”

and the last one…the hardest one maybe…is forgiving the source of that pain.

Ding.

Dong.

It will go away soon and maybe it will go away for a time and then come back again.

But I give it to Christ because the weight is too big for me carry.

Forgiveness is both vulnerability and strength at its finest and it’s beautiful when you finally come to terms with it.

Forgiveness is freedom from the past, from the present and future mistakes. It’s continually active in our lives not a passive, one time thing.

Many nights I long for the understanding as to why such bad things happen in our lives or why people hurt people or why those we can forgive refuse to extend that same grace – but then I’m reminded of a story in Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place when she was asked to carry her father’s suitcase after asking a question he didn’t want to answer quite yet.

• “Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?” he said. I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning. “It’s too heavy,” I said. “Yes,” he said, “and it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It’s the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger, you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.”

Much like Christ, our Father only gives us what He knows we can bear, and when we can’t, He will carry it for us. While I long for the knowledge of what I don’t understand, I can fully trust Christ to carry it for me because I am my Father’s child and He loves is without bounds (isn’t that so comforting?).

I can’t change the past. But I can choose today. Right now. To choose forgiveness. To choose to love despite. To seek refuge in the forgiveness, grace and love Christ offers me so freely.

The bell may toll every once again, but I willfully let go of that rope; time heals and the sounds begin to diminish, the tempo gets slower and slower until the last ring finally  fades and maybe quite abruptly – stops.