Faith Lessons: Have I really forgiven that person?

I had a friend that went through some really horrible stuff. She watched a loved one die and because she was the last to see them alive others blamed her for that person’s death. The family of the love one really treated her so bad that she began to hate them.

At the time she didn’t know too much about God. But she did start going to church. At church the Pastor spoke a lot about forgiveness and told her that she needed to forgive the family and as believers we know that God requires us to forgive others.

So she called me one day after the family had done something else to hurt her and she asked me “how do I know I have forgiven?” She said that she thought she had forgiven them and that she wanted to even though they really hurt her, but how did she really know if had forgiven them? So I told her, when you don’t want anything bad to happen to them anymore then you have probably forgiven them. Yes that’s what I told her. You see they had treated her so bad her every thought was about them getting back what they had done to her.

Well as time went on I realized something about my own heart. There was someone in my life that I trusted and loved who had hurt me. They hurt me so bad that I would come to church right when the Pastor began to preach and would leave right before service was over so that I wouldn’t have to see or talk to them. I had convinced myself that until they apologized to me that I wasn’t going to talk to them anymore. I just didn’t want to be hurt again and so I thought it would be best to not be around them at all. I don’t even know if they truly knew how much they hurt me. In my heart I felt they were wrong and I wasn’t even going to tell them why they were wrong.

One day I thought about that question my friend asked me. How do I know I have forgiven? I thought I had forgiven the person that hurt me. I just wasn’t going to allow them to hurt me again and so I avoided them. Well, as Christians we base our lives and actions on The Word of God. What did Jesus say about forgiveness? If we think about the story of the servant who owed a great deal of money to his master but the debt was canceled, we can relate that to our lives.

One Sunday at church I hugged this person and told them I love them. And just then I realized that’s when I forgave them. I didn’t care if they ever apologized it just didn’t matter anymore. Maybe they will never know or admit that they did anything wrong to me and that’s OK. It’s not my issue anymore; it’s God’s issue.

So there is still the issue of how do you get to that point? I could have never forgiven on my own. The pain was too much. The issue was too big. I felt way too betrayed. It was not me on my own. It was Jesus. He had to give me the ability to forgive. It is sometimes as simple as asking Jesus to help you to forgive that person. But we still need to exercise our faith. Ask Jesus to help you to forgive and believe that He will.

That person no longer owes me an apology. Just like the servant no longer owed the money. That’s how we know that we have forgiven, when that person no longer owes you anything. When they no longer owe you the money, the apology, the explanation, or whatever they did wrong to you or against you. When you let it go and love them anyway (although you still don’t have to hang out with them so they can continue to hurt you) but when you have said in your heart “it is finished” then you have forgiven.