Learning to Forgive

In this chapter, we move from making an apology to accepting the apology. As we’ve seen, forgiving someone for wrong behavior can be tough, especially if we consider the offense to be major.

Let’s be clear: the need for forgiveness always begins with an offense. The International Forgiveness Institute, founded by Professor Robert Enright, a pioneer in “forgiveness” research, defines forgiveness as a moral issue: Forgiveness “is a response to an injustice (a moral wrong),” and “it is a turning to the ‘good’ in the face of wrongdoing.”¹ If no offense has been committed, then forgiveness is a nonissue.

All sincere apologies have the same two goals: that the offender be forgiven and the relationship be reconciled. When forgiveness and reconciliation occur, the relationship can continue to grow.

“HOW COULD THEY LOVE ME AND DO THAT?”

Even a minor offense can be like a thunderstorm ruining a picnic. It destroys the tranquility of the relationship. If you’re the one offended, you know how it feels: there’s hurt, anger, disappointment, disbelief, a sense of betrayal and rejection. Whether the offender is a coworker, roommate, parent, or spouse, the question is, “How could they love me and say or do that?” Your love tank has just suffered a rupture.

There’s more fallout: Your sense of justice has been violated. It’s like little moral soldiers inside you stand up and say, “That’s not right. We will fight for you.” Everything in you wants to say to those little soldiers, “Charge!” But you are not sure that is the right thing to do. You value this relationship. You think, Maybe they didn’t mean it like it sounded, or Maybe I didn’t get the full story.

Reason prevails as you try to gain information. Perhaps you find that you were mistaken. You read the situation incorrectly. So, your anger subsides and you continue to develop the relationship. On the other hand, investigation may confirm your worst fears. It is real, and it is worse than you thought. The person has wronged you. He has hurt you; she has humiliated you. Her words were unkind, unloving, and disrespectful. The offense now sits as an emotional barrier between the two of you.

Often the situation is compounded by our response. She screamed at you, so you scream at her. She pushed you, so you push her. She said something disrespectful to you, so you reciprocate. Now you are both guilty of an offense. Unless each of you chooses to apologize and each of you chooses to forgive, the emotional barrier will never be completely removed.

Because we are all imperfect, we sometimes fail to treat each other with love, dignity, and respect; apologies and forgiveness therefore are essential elements to healthy relationships. Who apologizes first is unimportant. That each of you apologizes is all-important. An apology reaches out for forgiveness. So let’s look at the art of forgiving.

What Is Forgiveness?

First, let’s clarify the meaning of the word forgiveness. Three Hebrew words and four Greek words are translated forgive in the English Scriptures. They are basic synonyms with slightly varying shades of meaning. The key ideas are “to cover; to take away; to pardon; and to be gracious to.”

The most common of these is the idea of taking away one’s sins (failures). For example, the psalmist says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”² This psalmist is speaking of God’s forgiveness; thus, God’s forgiveness is relieving the person from God’s judgment—from the penalty due the person who transgresses God’s law. Again the Scriptures say, “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.”³ Isaiah the prophet spoke of God “blotting out” our sins and remembering them no more.⁴ Clearly, God’s forgiveness means that our sins no longer stand as a barrier between us and God. Forgiveness removes the distance and allows us open fellowship with God.

The same is true in human forgiveness. Forgiveness means we choose to lift the penalty, to pardon the offender. It means letting go of the offense and welcoming the offender back into your life. Forgiveness is not a feeling but a decision. It is the decision to continue growing in the relationship by removing the barrier.

If you’re the offended party, forgiveness means that you will not seek revenge, that you will not demand justice, that you will not let the offense stand between the two of you. Forgiveness results in reconciliation. This does not mean that trust is immediately restored. We will talk about that later. Reconciliation means that the two of you have put the issue behind you and are now facing the future together.

THE FORGIVENESS CYCLE

An apology is an important part of the forgiveness cycle. An offense is committed; an apology is made; and forgiveness is given.

Forgiveness Offered Freely

Again, this cycle is clearly seen in God’s relationship with people. The prophet Isaiah delivered this message to ancient Israel. “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”⁵ We are never separated from God’s love, but our disobedience does separate us from His fellowship. The New Testament reminds us that “the wages of sin is death.”⁶ Death is the ultimate picture of separation. Of course, this is not what God desires for His creatures. Therefore, the writer quickly adds that “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”⁷ God desires fellowship with His creatures; that is what the cross of Christ is all about. God offers His forgiveness freely.

The Christian message is that in order to experience God’s forgiveness, people must respond by deep change or repentance (a turning around) and faith in Christ.⁸ The message is clear. If we would receive God’s forgiveness, we must acknowledge our sin and accept His forgiveness. John the apostle writes, “If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins.”⁹ Thus, in order for our fellowship with God to be restored, we must acknowledge our sin—that is, apologize. The moment we do this, we experience the warm embrace of our heavenly Father. The distance is gone. We are again walking in fellowship with God.

I have taken time to review God’s forgiveness toward us because the Scriptures say that we as humans are to forgive each other as God forgives us.¹⁰ That’s the divine model, and it is a wise and prudent model for making an apology in today’s world. It has two essential elements: (1) confession and repentance on the part of the offender, and (2) forgiveness on the part of the one sinned against.

In the Scriptures, these two are never separated. Therefore, on the human level, the apology is a critical element in the cycle of forgiveness. That is why we have spent the first half of this book talking about how to apologize effectively. However, once the apology is made, the offended person then has a choice: to forgive or not to forgive. To forgive opens the door to reconciliation between the two of you. Not to forgive leads to further deterioration of the relationship.

Jesus declared to His followers, “Do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”¹¹ Most of us would like to have forgiveness when we fail. Therefore, we are encouraged to extend forgiveness to those who offend us. The Christian message is that we can forgive because we have been forgiven by God. God forgives us because Christ paid the ultimate penalty for our failures. Therefore, our capacity to forgive others comes from God. It is always proper to pray, “Lord, help me to forgive.”

When No Apology Is Offered

What if the person who offended me does not come back to apologize? Then I am to lovingly confront the offender. This approach was laid out clearly by Jesus. “If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”¹² The pattern is clear. An offense is committed. The person does not immediately apologize. So you confront the offender, looking for an apology. If the person apologizes, then you forgive. There is to be no limit to our forgiveness so long as the offender returns to apologize.

What if the offender refuses to apologize—even when confronted with his/her wrong behavior? We are to approach the person a second time, telling them of the offense and giving them an opportunity to apologize. Again, Jesus gave clear instructions to His followers. “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more.”¹³

Again, the pattern is clear. You approach the person a second or even a third time. Each time you are willing to forgive and are seeking reconciliation. Ultimately, the offender may be unwilling to acknowledge the need for forgiveness and refuse to apologize for the wrong behavior. Even then, the Christian is to pray for them, seek to communicate the love of Christ, and hope that they will repent of their wrongdoing and experience forgiveness.

Please notice carefully that Jesus did not say we should forgive the offender when he or she is unwilling to apologize. Notice also that Jesus was addressing the issue of moral sin—“If your brother sins against you.” Some of our irritations in relationships are simply that—irritations. Our spouse doesn’t load the dishwasher the way we do. We may request change, but if our spouse does not, it is not a moral failure. Many of the irritations in relationships we can overlook, forbear, accept. But moral failures always stand as a barrier that can be removed only by apologizing and asking forgiveness.

Therefore, if a person refuses to apologize for a moral failure after being confronted several times, we are to release the person who has sinned against us to God, letting God take care of the person rather than insisting that we pay back the person for the wrongful action. The Scriptures teach that vengeance belongs to God, not to man.¹⁴ The reason for this is that God alone knows everything about the other person, not only his actions but his motives—and God alone is the ultimate judge.

Releasing the Person to God

So the person who is feeling hurt and angry toward another who has treated him unfairly is to release that person to an all-knowing heavenly Father who is fully capable of doing what is just and right toward that person.

Jesus Himself gave us the model. The apostle Peter said of Jesus, “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.”¹⁵ Or as another translation reads, He “left His wrongs in the hands of the righteous Judge.”¹⁶ As a man, Jesus did not take revenge on those who had wronged Him; rather, He committed the whole situation to God, knowing that God would judge righteously.

Often when we have been wronged, we think that if we don’t press the issue and demand justice, then no one will. You can turn your erring friend and the wrong committed against you over to God, knowing that He will take the best possible action on your behalf. He is more concerned about righteousness than you are.

Once you have released the person to God, then it is time to confess your own sin. Remember, hurt and anger are not sinful. But often we allow anger to lead us to sinful behavior. Explosive words or destructive behavior must be acknowledged to God and to the person you sinned against. Don’t allow the other person’s refusal to apologize to keep you from apologizing. He or she may or may not forgive you, but when you have apologized, you will be able to look at yourself in the mirror, knowing that you are willing to admit your failures.

FORGIVING WHEN THE APOLOGIZER DOESN’T SPEAK YOUR LANGUAGE

I remember the mother who said, “After I heard you speak about the five languages of an apology, it was much easier for me to forgive my adult son. He is thirty years old, and he has apologized many times. But all he ever says is ‘I’m sorry.’ To him, that is an apology. To me, that leaves a lot to be desired. I want to hear him say, ‘I was wrong; will you please forgive me?’ But he always stops with ‘I’m sorry.’

“In the past, I’ve forgiven him most of the time. But I always had questions about his sincerity. After your lecture, I realized that he was sincere, that he was speaking his apology language. And even though it was not mine, I believe he was sincere. So it made it easier for me to genuinely forgive him.”

THE DANGER OF FORGIVING TOO EASILY

Some of us have been trained since childhood to forgive quickly and freely. If a person makes an apology using any of the apology languages, we are likely to forgive him and not question his sincerity. In so doing, we may end up encouraging destructive behavior.

Lisa and her husband, Ben, faced what she called “many stressors” in their first year of marriage: moving to a new city, selling one house and buying another—twice. Lisa had ongoing health problems; Ben had a new job, his parents separated, and his father threatened to commit suicide; and together the two started a singles’ ministry in their church. In Lisa’s letter to me (Jennifer), she described the final major setback: “Last, my husband committed adultery.”

I read Lisa’s letter closely: “I felt God instructed me to forgive him and love him. I did. I reasoned that after all that we had been through, anyone could make a mistake. I freely gave my forgiveness and spoke of this affair only two more times. However, a year later he cheated with another woman. This time I gave him a hard time, and some consequences were handed out. My pastor got involved. We both showed him love and mercy, and I forgave him after he said he was sorry and ‘repented.’

“Eight years went by and, unknown to me, my husband continued his affairs. An awakening phone call came from him, saying, ‘I am in love with another woman, and I’m not coming home tonight.’ At that point, I changed all the locks and had him in the lawyer’s office signing separation papers.”

Lisa and Ben had a year’s separation. During that time, they began to repair their wounded marriage. “By a miracle of God, much counseling, and setting more healthy boundaries, we are affair free—and celebrating fourteen years of marriage,” she said.

Yes, that is an amazing ending, and Lisa would say God was in the saving of their shaky marriage. Still, she has regrets that Ben’s deception continued as long as it did and that she had not taken stronger action sooner. “I believe if I had known about the five languages of apology and had been a better judge of sincerity, my boundaries would have been stronger earlier in the marriage. I would have been less codependent and weak in the name of forgiveness. My discernment of true change would have been enhanced, and it might have saved us many years of unbearable sorrow.”

I think Lisa is right. Holding someone accountable for negative behavior is an act of love. Had Lisa understood the five languages of apology, she likely would have had the courage to say after the first offense, “I love you too much to take this lightly. I will not continue in this relationship unless we can agree to get extensive counseling. Our relationship is too important to me to treat this as a light offense.” In major moral failures, we must deal with the cause of the behavior if we expect there to be genuine, long-term change.

“I NEED SOME TIME”

Earlier we indicated that there are two common responses to an apology: to forgive or not to forgive. In reality, there is a third possible response: “Give me some time to think about it. I want to forgive you, but I’ve got to have some time to process all of this.”

Sometimes we have been hurt so deeply or so often that we cannot bring ourselves emotionally, spiritually, or physically to the point of genuinely extending forgiveness. We need time for inner healing, time for the restoration of emotional balance or even physical health that will give us the capacity to forgive. I remember the husband who said, “After my wife’s first lie about her drug use, I chose to forgive her and to work on our marriage because I thought she truly regretted what she had done. I was convinced that she would never do it again. But now, she has done it again and again. She entered a treatment program but left three weeks before the program was over. She said she could make it on her own. Well, she didn’t. Within a week, she was stoned again.

“This time she is asking me for another chance. She says she will stick with the program. I’ve agreed to pay for the treatment, but I don’t know if I can forgive her. I’m overwhelmed. I’m willing to pray about it, but right now I don’t want to see her.”

I felt great empathy for this husband. Who would not understand his reluctance to forgive? Who would be so callous as to demand that he forgive her on the spot? Who can give him the assurance that her apology is sincere? And who can assure him that it will never happen again? All the evidence seems to point in the opposite direction.

“I love my wife,” he said, “and she says that she loves me. But how can that be? How can you do this if you love someone? It’s a strange way to show love. I hope in time that I can forgive her. I hope that she is sincere. I hope that she has realized that she has been walking the wrong road. But right now, I don’t know.”

This is a husband who deep within wants to forgive his wife. He wants to have a genuinely loving relationship, but he doesn’t know if he can forgive her. Time will tell. He is open to the possibility, and he is praying and waiting. Sometimes, this is the only realistic approach to forgiveness. In the meantime, he must process his emotions with God and not allow his hurt to turn into bitterness and hatred.

TRUST: THE TENDER PLANT

This brings us to the issue of rebuilding trust. Forgiveness and trust are not to be equated. Because forgiveness is a decision, it can be extended immediately when one perceives he has heard a sincere apology. However, trust is not a decision—it is rather an emotion. Trust is that gut-level confidence that you will do what you say you will do.

Obviously, trust has a cognitive aspect: “I choose to believe that you are a person of integrity” is a statement based on trust. However, this statement is rooted in the soil of emotions. Trust is that emotional sense that I can relax with you and don’t have to be suspicious. I can let down my emotional guard because you will not knowingly hurt me.

In most relationships, trust develops in the early stages of the relationship. Unless we have been deeply hurt in the past, we tend to assume that people are who they claim to be. If in the early months of the relationship we find no occasion to doubt that, then our initial trust is affirmed and deepened.

Trust, then, is one’s normal emotional state in healthy relationships. Friends trust each other. Spouses trust each other. Close vocational associates usually trust each other. However, when trust is violated or betrayed, it does not spring back immediately after an apology and the extending of forgiveness. Trust is diminished because the person proved to be untrustworthy. If I am honest, I will likely say, “I forgive you because I believe you are sincere in your apology. But to be very honest, I don’t trust you as deeply as I did before.”

I like to visualize trust as a tender plant. When trust is violated, it is as though someone stepped on the plant and pushed it into the mud. The rain and the sun may eventually enable the plant to stand erect again, but it will not happen overnight. So how do we rebuild trust in a relationship when it has been violated? The answer is by being trustworthy one day at a time. A sincere apology and genuine forgiveness open the door to the possibility of trust growing again. How does this happen? In my experience in working with couples through the years, it is fostered best when the offender chooses to open his/her private life to the scrutiny of the offended spouse.

For example, if the offense was in the area of money, then the attitude will be “Here is the checkbook; here is the savings account; here are the stockholdings. You may look at these anytime you wish. I have no other accounts. I will introduce you to the people who manage these accounts and let them know that you have total access.”

If the offense was in the area of sexual unfaithfulness, then you allow the partner full access to your cell phone, computer, and any other means of communication. You give a full accounting of all of your time. And you give your spouse permission to make phone calls to affirm that you are where you said you would be. Trust is not fostered by secretiveness but by openness. If you choose to be trustworthy over a period of time, your spouse will likely come to trust you again. If you continue to be untrustworthy by lying, cheating, hiding, and making excuses, trust will never be reborn. Trust’s only hope of survival is the rain and sunshine of integrity.

Because the rebuilding of trust is a process and takes time, people have sometimes said to me, “I think I’ve forgiven my spouse. But some days I feel like I haven’t, because I really don’t trust them.” Their struggle comes because they are confusing forgiveness and trust. In summary, forgiveness is a choice to lift the penalty and allow the person back into your life so that the relationship can continue to grow. Trust, on the other hand, returns in stages. When there is changed behavior over a period of time, you begin to feel more comfortable and optimistic about the other person. If this continues, eventually you will come to trust them fully again.

COMPLETING THE CYCLE

Forgiveness holds the power to give renewed life to the relationship. The choice not to forgive pronounces the death penalty upon the relationship. Without forgiveness, relationships die. With forgiveness, relationships have the potential for becoming vibrant and enriching the lives of the people involved.

It would be hard to overestimate the power of forgiveness. It is the goal of every sincere apology. If forgiveness is not extended, then the apology hangs as a loose electrical wire disconnected from the system. An apology alone cannot restore relationships. An apology is a request for forgiveness. It is the gift of forgiveness that ultimately restores the relationship. If we are friends and you violate our friendship by treating me unfairly but quickly come to me with a sincere apology, the future of our relationship is neither determined by your offense nor by your apology but by my willingness or unwillingness to forgive you. Forgiveness completes the cycle and leads to reconciliation. Without forgiveness, the purpose of the apology is thwarted.

WHAT FORGIVENESS CAN’T DO

Let me be quick to add that forgiveness does not remove all the results of failure. If a man is given to fits of anger and strikes out at his wife, hitting her on the chin and breaking her jaw, he may sincerely confess and she may genuinely forgive. But her jaw is still broken and may cause her difficulty for years to come. If a teenage girl, in spite of her parents’ urging, succumbs to trying a popular drug at the request of a friend and that drug adversely affects her mental capacity, the friend, who offered the drug, may apologize sincerely and profusely. The girl may apologize to her parents if she has the mental capacity to do so. The parents may genuinely forgive, but the mental capacity of the young girl is forever impaired.

It is one of the fundamental realities of life: When we commit actions or speak words that are detrimental to another, the consequences of those actions and words are never fully removed, even with genuine forgiveness.

The second reality is that forgiveness does not remove all painful emotions. A wife may well forgive her husband for striking her in anger. But when she thinks about what he did, she may once again feel disappointment, hurt, and rejection. Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a commitment to accept the person in spite of what he or she has done. It is a decision not to demand justice but to show mercy.

Forgiveness does not remove the memory of the event. We speak of forgiving and forgetting. But ultimately, we never forget. Every event in life is recorded in the brain. There is every potential that the event will return to the conscious mind again and again. If we have chosen to forgive, we take the memory to God along with the hurt feelings, acknowledge to Him what we are thinking and feeling, but thank Him that by His grace the offense has been forgiven. Then we ask God for the power to do something kind and loving for that person today. We choose to focus on the future and not allow our minds to be obsessed with past failures that are now forgiven.

Assuming you are ready to express forgiveness, how might you verbalize it? Here are some suggestions.

STATEMENTS OF FORGIVENESS

I am deeply hurt by what you said. I think you realize that. I appreciate your apology, because without it, I don’t think I could forgive you. But because I think you are sincere, I want you to know that I forgive you.

What can I say? I’m touched by your apology. I value our relationship greatly. Therefore, I’m choosing to forgive you.

I didn’t know if I would ever be able to say this sincerely. I was devastated by what you did. I would never have imagined you capable of doing such a thing. But I love you, and I choose to believe that your apology is sincere. So I am offering you my forgiveness.

Your work error has cost me both time and money. I want to forgive you for causing this problem. Yes, I believe that with your correction plan in place, I can forgive you.

I know how hard it is for you to swallow your pride and say, “I was wrong.” You’ve grown in my eyes, and I do forgive you.

TALK ABOUT IT

When do you find it most difficult to forgive someone? Why do you think this is the case?

Discuss the author’s observation that “we are never separated from God’s love, but our disobedience does separate us from His fellowship.”

Why is it dangerous to forgive too easily?