By Cynthia Heald
My young friend Amy came to my home to share with me a deep hurt that she had been struggling with for years. The burden she carried had come from her father’s abuse. She had read several books, sought good counsel, and when she came to talk with me, I think she was finally ready to accept Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness.
Her questions were normal. She said, “It doesn’t seem fair for me to let my father off the hook. He should be made to suffer for what he did to me. Everyone thinks he is such a good Christian man—if only they knew what he is really like.”
I listened and agreed with her that to respond by releasing and forgiving her father seemed to go against our sense of how to right a wrong. Although I could not begin to identify with her pain, I could understand her struggle over freeing herself from her father. I shared my experience of clearly hearing the Lord’s prompting to release my dad, to accept him as he was, and to forgive him. I told Amy that forgiving my father was the best decision not only for me but also for him.
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Amy and I read together a verse in Romans: “Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, ‘I will take revenge; I will pay them back,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19; emphasis added).
I explained to her, “God wants to free us from ever having to vindicate ourselves. Vengeance is God’s responsibility. So, you are not really letting your father off the hook; you are just releasing him to the only one who is just, fair, and able to correct or repay those who harm us.
“One of the most precious lessons I’ve learned from God is that he asks me to forgive because he loves me and wants me to be free—free from bitterness and free to love even when it is hard. Forgiving and releasing my dad blessed me and my dad. I have never regretted my decision to forgive him. Especially now, since he died, I’m so thankful that we had a few years in which I was free to relate to him in a way that pleased God.”
[Read the Bible Gateway Blog post, Why Being Faithful is Important: An Interview with Cynthia Heald]
Amy was understandably hesitant about going to her father. I said, “Amy, the most important thing is that you forgive your dad. This forgiveness is between you and God. Forgiveness is essentially vertical; reconciliation is horizontal. After the vertical is taken care of, then trust God to guide in how to be reconciled. Pray and ask the Lord about if—or when and where—you need to talk with your dad. Surrender your situation to God, and let him guide you in the right way to relate to your dad. Sometimes sharing with the other person is needed, but it is not always necessary or beneficial.”
It was not easy for Amy to forgive her dad. It is never easy, but it is right—for us. We are the ones who benefit.
God is so clear about our forgiving others because he wants us to experience the gift of forgiveness. Forgiveness frees the forgiver from debilitating emotions that undermine and deplete our emotional and physical reserves. King Solomon reminds us: “A calm and undisturbed mind and heart are the life and health of the body, but envy, jealousy, and wrath are like rottenness of the bones.” The apostle Paul expresses similar truth in his letter to the Ephesian believers: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”
Not only do harmful emotions damage us emotionally, but, as the Scriptures teach, these runaway emotions also corrode our bones. The abuse survivor quoted at the beginning of this chapter said that she longed to be free from the bitterness and rage that were destroying her. God wants us to forgive because he knows that a freed heart will lead to emotional and physical health.
I have been amazed at how important our forgiving others is to God. Jesus not only taught us to pray “Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us,” but he also reinforced this vital lesson by adding a powerful and stunning PS: “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.” He could not have been more clear about how significant forgiveness is to our own spiritual well-being.
It’s not that God doesn’t want to forgive us; it’s that a revengeful spirit keeps God at a distance. Pride drives us to hold on to our “right” to retaliate, to hold on to the hurt. We become our own god and therefore have no need for the living and true God.
How tragic that we set ourselves up for continual heartache and suffering, even though the Lord has so wonderfully promised to look after us. Liz’s parents had a bitter divorce, and each one told her that if she visited the other parent, then she was no longer welcome. This exemplifies how blinding revenge can be: “I’ll punish the one who hurt me by not seeing my daughter.” It also exemplifies how unforgiveness affects all those who are close to us. Liz and her family were caught between her parents’ bitterness toward each other; my friend was forced to choose sides.
In learning to forgive, we must understand how to handle our feelings. There can be times when we earnestly pray to forgive someone yet we find that the feelings don’t go away and resentment keeps surfacing. We question whether we have really forgiven and begin to think that forgiveness really doesn’t work. This is when we need to remember that forgiveness is often a process.
Some injuries of the spirit have both a past and an ongoing present—and so forgiveness by necessity is a work in progress. A woman whose husband has been addicted to pornography forgives—but she may well be faced with the problem again. When she climbs into bed with her husband, you can be sure that she is making an ongoing choice to forgive and to rebuild trust. . . .
. . . Forgiving well means moving through the hurt and the legitimate anger that tells us we’ve been hurt, to a choice to release the person who inflicted the injury. . . . Forgiveness is about looking the pain straight in the eye and saying, “God is bigger than this.”
I think that God is pleased when we are honest about how hard it is for us to forgive. The key is our willingness to be in the process of learning how to forgive.
The above article is excerpted from Living Wisely: Believing the Truths of Scripture by Cynthia Heald. Copyright © 2020. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. www.navpress.com/. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries.
Bio: Cynthia Heald uses her speaking engagements, Bible studies, and books to encourage women around the world to deepen their relationship with God. In addition to her popular Becoming a Woman of… Bible study series, which includes the bestselling Becoming a Woman of Excellence and Becoming a Woman of Freedom, Cynthia has also written Becoming a Woman Who Walks With God: A Month of Devotionals for Abiding in Christ, a Gold Medallion–winning devotional. Her husband, Jack, joined her in writing two Bible studies about marriage: Loving Your Wife and Walking Together. Cynthia’s other nonfiction books include A Woman’s Journey to the Heart of God and When the Father Holds You Close.
When she is not writing or speaking, Cynthia loves to spend time with Jack and their four children and eight grandchildren. She is an avid reader, especially of the classics. Cynthia and Jack are full-time Navigator staff members living in Tucson, Arizona.
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