Tag Archives: forgiveness

What to do when you want to Get Even.

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

Our good friends take us to dinner for our birthday. Suddenly, while we’re enjoying the food and the company, the waitstaff descends on us with a loudly sung song in celebration. It may involve horns, whistles and a funny hat. It almost always involves a dessert dish of some sort and a tiny bit of public embarrassment. We look at our dear friends after things quiet down and mutter “I’ll get even with you!”

Forgive social card background

Getting even. We all know what it means. Sometimes we use it jokingly, but often it comes from a place of being hurt, and it has become synonymous with retaliation. It usually means that someone has been hurt. One party has caused some sort of wrong or damage onto another.

Getting even comes from the idea that “Even” is the condition we all need to be in. In our interactions with one another, there is give and take. Even means scores are settled, debts are paid and we are on the level with one another. This is where we all attempt to live with each other.

For any number of reasons, someone may have done something that hurt us. Whether it resulted from an accident that they couldn’t fix, negligence that they wouldn’t fix, or a mean spirit where causing pain & trouble was the goal, you were the one who got hurt in the process.

Things need to be brought back into a state of being even. In natural man’s thinking, that means that a couple of things might likely happen.

  • Restitution. A person at the store accidentally backed into your car. Their insurance pays to bring things back to the way they were before the accident.The teenager across the street accidentally under-steers while backing out of the driveway and takes out your mailbox. They pay you to replace your mailbox.

    I remember the time I had to replace my uncle’s sliding glass door. I accidentally walked through it thinking it was open. It shattered everywhere. I payed for a new one. It was the right thing to do.

  • Revenge. Our legal system is based on a system of standardized and systematized revenge. People pay with portions of their lives based on how serious the crime was that they were convicted for. Stealing, first offense could get a sentence of one year of probation, while treason or terrorism could get the death penalty.One well known case of revenge was when Aaron Burr decided he had enough of what he considered Alexander Hamilton’s back room dealings. Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. The duel resulted in Hamilton’s death.

    Revenge can even be something so small as back biting and gossip. You wouldn’t ever physically harm someone, but you’re going to make sure EVERYBODY knows what they did to you and how badly you were victimized by that meanie.

There is another road. It’s called forgiveness. Sometimes people can’t pay what’s owed. Revenge can be pretty costly. Usually when someone is the victim of revenge, they are pretty sure they didn’t deserve it. Then they might also retaliate, and then you have a war on your hands. Forgiveness is a better option. Forgiveness is the best way to get us back to even.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
― Mahatma Gandhi,

What does it mean to forgive? When people truly forgive, they are pledging to give up their right to be offended or hurt. They drop it. You may have heard it said before, “I forgave them, but I will never forget it”. This isn’t true forgiveness.  True forgiveness is when we drop our claim.  That means not remembering…intentionally.

Webster’s dictionary defines forgive as:

  1. To give up resentment of or claim to requital for an insult.
  2. To grant relief from payment.
  3. To cease to feel resentment against an offender.
  4. To pardon one’s enemies.

In the Bible, the Greek word translated forgive in the New Testament is Aphiemi. (af-ee’-ay-mee). It means to send. In various applications it means to send forth. To send away. To yield up. We see this used 147 times in scripture. One notable place is found in 1 John 1:9. Where John writes – If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
― C.S. Lewis

If we are really dropping our claim, if we are truly sending our offense forth, sending it away and yielding it up, then we will not be holding on to thoughts of it. If we really forgive, we stop bringing it up, or using it as leverage when we’re angry.

When we want to get even, we want restitution. If we can’t get that, we might seek revenge, but if you allow God to work in you, He will give you a heart of forgiveness. Think about it, there was no way we could pay restitution to Him, and thankfully, He didn’t seek revenge.  Instead, He made a way where we could get back to Him when we couldn’t get there for ourselves.  He extended His mercy and grace toward us in Jesus.  He offered us forgiveness.  Through His mercy, He lifted us to a place of peace with Him, where we have no fear of retaliation.  Christ Himself payed our restitution. (Click here to know more.) 1 Peter 2:21 says that Jesus gave us an example that we should follow in His steps.

Instead of getting even, you can forgive. By forgiving, you are showing the mercy that God has given to you.  You are getting back to even with them.  Instead of getting even, we can say you are giving even.

Love you guys! Don’t forget to share.

Art

You Can Make A Difference. Will You?

By | | , , , , ,
2 Comments

Recently I was watching a TED talk with Tony Robbins. Tony pointed out in his talk that many people who have parents who gave them the best of everything and made sure they had all the right tools to succeed will many times end up not being anything but ordinary and in spite of the advantages that they have, they never really make exceptional positive contributions to society.  By contrast, when people have a significant struggle, when they come up in adversity and in some cases, terrible tragedy, these people will many times go on to make remarkable positive contributions to society.

Old style mic resized

To make a difference in someone’s life, you do not have to be brilliant, rich, beautiful or perfect.  You just have to care.  – Mandy Hale

We all have struggles of some kind.  We live in a world full of sin and selfishness.  None of us are without scars. Many of us are still in the thick of the fight but some have made it through and that’s one of the two important things about the struggle.

  • First – Don’t stop moving forward.
    It’s very, VERY easy to stop, plop down and start feeling sorry for yourself.  I get it, it hurts.  You many not have done anything to deserve this and if you didn’t, then you shouldn’t be suffering like this. But if we get caught up in paying attention to the injustice of it, we will have a tendency to lose forward momentum.  I am honestly surprised sometimes by the unwillingness of some to move forward.  They never want to let go and leave the suffering and the hurt.  They instead want to wear it like a sweater and constantly talk about it.  The important thing to them is that everyone can see how wronged they were, how unjust it was, and how much pity they deserve. This is really sad.  This important thing when you’re hurt or offended is to keep your eye on the exit sign and keep moving toward it.  The true exit is forgiveness.  Why is it so important to God that we forgive?  The Bible says in James 3:16 “For wherever jealousy and rivalry exist, there is disorder and every kind of evil”.  Every kind of evil is the manifest presence of the devil. When we open ourselves to strife, he’s there – doing what he does; stealing, killing and destroying (John 10:10).  It means that you are yielding to your enemy.  It also means that if you continue, things will only get worse.  The way out is forgiveness.   It’s only through forgiveness that you can move on to the second important thing.

    “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”  ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • Second – Use it to make a difference.
    It’s only when we overcome these painful experiences that we truly become qualified to help others who are also going through the same suffering.  When you’ve made it through the wind, the fire, the mud and the blood and you’re still standing, you inspire others.  When you’ve made it and are better for it, you can speak with credibility.  When you are unafraid to reveal your scars, you will more easily find trust in those with the same scars.  Your message of hope will resonate in them when you talk about your journey and how you have made it through.

I would ask you to look at your life and the struggles you have faced.  Do you know anyone else who’s facing anything like that?  I want to encourage you to reach out.  Not everyone will want help, some just want to stew in their sorrow.  Others though, will hear you and you can help them.

This week – purpose in your heart that you will make a difference.

“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”  ― Catherine of Siena

If This helps you and you think it can help someone else, please consider sharing.  Also, please join the conversation by leaving a comment.

Are Your Wounds Not Healing As Fast As You Want Them To?

By | | , , , , ,
1 Comment

I like to work with wood. Many of the tools I use in woodworking are used for cutting and so they need to be sharp. That includes hand tools. While I usually clamp my projects in a vise, sometimes, if they are too large or oddly shaped, I have to hold them while working on them. Because I’m right handed, I’m usually holding the board or project with my left hand and because of that, my left hand ends up with all of the scars from the various accidents I’ve had over the years. My left hand has quite a few. Anyway, I have had a few cuts that probably should have had stitches but I didn’t get any. Because I didn’t though, the wound kept re-opening when I would move my hand a certain way. I used butterfly band-aids & all kinds of dressing, but certain movements would still open up the wound. Because of that, it took these cuts far longer to heal and the scar may be more visible because of it.

3 hand planes

When I close my eyes and think back to when I was a little boy, I can see my mom scolding me because I wouldn’t leave my scabbed knee alone. I would scratch and pick at it until sometimes I would cause it to start bleeding all over again. As adults, sometimes we are like that with emotional wounds. We won’t leave them alone to heal. We keep ripping the scab off of the wound. We do it with our words. We keep bringing up a hurt and rehearsing it. With someone who has hurt us in the past, all that has to happen is that their name comes up in conversation, and then so does the past and that time when they did that thing that you just can’t seem to get over. The wound starts to seep again because you couldn’t leave it alone for some reason. What’s the answer?

Scripture gives us a clear road to recovery.

  1. Love. Jesus said to His disciples in John 15:12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I loved you.” This is a specific Love to a specific group. As we follow Him, we are to love one another as He has loved us. There is no greater expression of His love toward us than that He has forgiven us. The Bible says in 2 Cor 5:19 that God was not and is not imputing our trespasses against us. God’s not holding your past against you but has in Christ completely forgiven you so that if you have received Christ as your Lord, you can stand before Him as if you have never done anything wrong. That is complete forgiveness.
  2. Forgive. Jesus said in Mark 11:25 “And when you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive it, so that your Father in Heaven may also forgive your deviations” LITV. The word forgive here in scripture literally means to send forth, to forsake, lay aside or yield up. You probably have heard people say “I forgive them but I can never forget” but that can not be true. To truly forgive means that when those thoughts come up, not only do you not talk them out but you intentionally cast them down and purposefully not think on them. You choose to forsake the hurt. You choose to lay aside the injury. You choose to forgive
  3. Turn your mouth around. Instead of rehearsing the past hurts, next time the opportunity arises to talk about the hurt, don’t do it! Make a decision that you will not continue to rehearse the past and scratch the wound back open. Instead, choose words of love, kindness and forgiveness. Intentionally say good things about the person who hurt you. Ask God to guide you. He will give you words to say.
  4. Walk in wisdom. Just like in woodworking, I learned the hard way that I need to pay attention to my actions and the potential for accidents and trouble. I need to look down the road and consider the results of my actions and words. If I don’t want people to be offended, then I need to make sure I’m not offensive. The easiest way to get past a physical or emotional injury is to simply not have one.


“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” 
― Mark Twain

 

When you find yourself in the thick of it though, remember, walk in love, walk in forgiveness, turn your mouth around and finally, walk in wisdom to avoid trouble in the future.

When true forgiveness is present, it shows us that real love is also present because love is shown in forgiveness. It is the hallmark that God is on the scene.

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

I want to encourage you this week to examine yourself & look for pockets of unforgiveness in your heart. Don’t be easy on yourself. Are you holding a grudge? Are there things that you haven’t let go of? Make the choice this week to forgive. Don’t let your hurt contaminate any more of your future. Choose freedom.

Victors, Victims & Forgiveness

By | | , , ,
1 Comment

I wanted to write about forgiveness in the blog post this week.  My problem was that I had this big ugly area in my life where I was holding onto a little bit of a grudge. I had to get it resolved so that I wasn’t being a total hypocrite when I talked to you about forgiveness.  That’s right, I’m just like you.  I face it too.  I also get the wonderful opportunities to wallow in my own self pity.  The thing is though, when you know what to do, God expects you to do what you know.  Have you ever thought about it?  Not doing what you know to do is really just increasing your disobedience to God.  There’s a short word for that, it’s called sin.  This is the reason why I’m publishing late. For those who look for my posts and miss them when they don’t show, I’m sorry.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is releasing someone from debt.  It may be that you were hurt physically from an act of violence or you were hurt emotionally by mean or inconsiderate people. You may actually have a monetary debt that you owe.  Either way you look at it, forgiveness is always tied to debt.  There can be no forgiveness if nothing is owed.

Let’s look at the word “Owe” for a second.  Owe is something that is either earned or comes through entitlement. It’s owed to them, it’s a debt.  This is especially true in the area of respect.  There are some people that we should respect just purely based on their position.  If we can’t respect them, we need to at least respect the position.  This is owed.  It’s due and it should be paid.  If you consider what I wrote about last week about unfulfilled expectations, there are things that we think are owed us but are not.  We think we deserve them but we don’t.  It’s a slippery slope when you start thinking about what you deserve, or you have expectations that you have no right to have.  You need to have a close look at yourself & be honest.  Is it really owed to me?

Forgiveness happens when we release people from the obligation of paying the debt.  We let them off the hook.  Matt. 6:15 says “But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses”.  Forgiveness for the Christian is not an option.  There is no condition found in the Bible where it’s okay to hang onto unforgiveness.  We see and interesting story in Matthew 18:23-35.  The bottom line of the story is that if the Heavenly Father can forgive what He has forgiven, He’s within His right to expect us to forgive also.

Forgiveness is all about you.  All of the control and responsibility of forgiveness totally rests in your hands.  No one else can do this for you.  If you won’t do it, it won’t get done.  Here are some things that helped me to do the right thing this week.

  1. Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.  When I hold a grudge, it’s not hurting the person I’m upset with nearly as much as it’s hurting me.  When I forgive, I’m really allowing myself to move on and have some peace.
  2. It always involves making a choice.  Forgiveness always follows the choice to forgive.  I read somewhere this week that when a person says “I can forgive but I can’t forget”, what they are really saying is “I won’t forgive”.  Very often unforgiveness is the very thing that’s keeping you from being able to move forward.  In order to get better, you need to release the debt.
  3. Forgiveness takes away your victim status.  When you are hurt and have not forgiven, you get to be pitiful and feel sorry for yourself.  Don’t be deceived though, that’s weakness.  Strong people don’t feel sorry for themselves.  If you are tired of being a victim and want to take control of your own direction in your life, then you need to stop reacting to what others are doing to you and instead decide how your will respond.  Acting from an decision is way better than acting from an injury.  You are also saying that though this may hurt, it will not be the determining factor in what you do next.  That will come from you and you alone.  Forgiveness is really one of the first steps toward becoming strong.  By forgiving, you are breaking the yoke off of your own neck and taking away the problem or injury’s control over you.

It would be unjust for God to require something from you that you are unable to do.  Since He gives us no options when it comes to forgiveness, we know that:

  1. We can do it.  He would not ask if it were impossible.
  2. It’s important that we do it.  What many people don’t realize is the spiritual implications of not walking in forgiveness.  If you won’t forgive, God can’t forgive you.

“Accept important apologies you never received.  If you love someone and you want to forgive them, Relieve them of the need to apologize to you, for anything.”  www.marcandangel.com

So what now?  I issue this challenge.  In the next 30 days, take at least two practical steps toward resolving unforgiveness in your own life.  There are people who have hurt you or owe you somehow, find a way to let them off the hook.  In the long run you’ll be glad you did.  God’s way is always the best.  What are some practical ways to demonstrate forgiveness?  Let me hear your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Overcoming Regret & Unfulfilled Expectations.

By | | , ,
2 Comments

I was thinking of a minister I saw on Christian television several years ago.  I don’t remember his name, but he was relating the story of attending his dad’s funeral.  This minister’s dad was estranged from the family and had nothing to do with his children.  This minister confessed that as he was sitting there in the service, he began to cry.  The Holy Spirit prompted his heart as if to ask “Why are you crying?”  This man shared that he was crying because there was no relationship, but there was supposed to be.  There was no fellowship but there was supposed to be.  His father should have been a good part of his life but now he was gone and so were the chances that it would ever happen.  This is the cry of the heart for everyone that has a broken relationship with their dad or mom.  This used to bother me quite a bit.  What if we never get it fixed?

This minister began to share how the Lord ministered to his heart.  The Lord showed him that all of the “Would have, Should have, Could have” that he was mourning over actually only existed in him.  What it really amounted to was this: he had unfulfilled expectations of his father.  He had an image in his mind of what he believed makes up a good father, and his dad fell short in every area.  There were a lot of things that he thought should have been and a lot of things that could have happened if only his dad would have done things differently.

expectations-danger-signNo one is supposed to love you like your mom & dad.  They are supposed to be there when everyone else blows away.  Right?  We suppose that when things get weird, they will have our back.  While that may be the standard for what we ultimately expect from mom & dad, reality tells a different story.  According to a 2012 article by Luke Rosiak, published in the Washington Times, 1 in 3 U.S. children live with out a father, and nearly 5 million live without a mother.  In 1960, just 11 percent lived without a father and in 2012 it’s at 33 percent!

While it hurts to watch your parents turn against one another and blow up your family, it’s a special kind of suck when one of your parents leaves and virtually kicks you to the curb, never having anything to do with you again.  Having suffered through that, I have a special place in my heart for those I see suffering through it too.  That’s one of the reasons this website & blog came to be.  God has helped me beyond measure to grow, cope & ultimately become strong in spite of being left twisting in the breeze. Now He wants to use me to help you.

This minister’s story helped me because:

  • I realized that I wasn’t alone in this.  Others had faced the same issues.  My suffering was not unique and there were others who had been down that same road, and knew what I felt and could help me.
  • I need to respond to reality, not my unfulfilled expectations. Deal with what was, not what wasn’t.
  • It’s not that we want our moms & dads to be great moms & dads, we want them to WANT TO be great moms & dads.  It’s hard to understand when they don’t WANT TO.
  • I began to realize that the pain was coming from me not him.  When I realized that, I was able to get a better perspective about things.
  • I decided to stop expecting anything.  I try not to put any burden or expectation on my mom & dad.  I just want to love and honor them.  I am just grateful for what they have given me and I take full responsibility to do all that I can to be a good son.  One that doesn’t cause shame but instead causes the light of honor to shine on them.
  • Shortcomings on their part do not justify shortcomings on my part.  I will no longer allow myself to use this as an excuse to be less than I know I should be. I will do what I know to do even if I’m the only one doing it.

Will we ever get it fixed?  I don’t know.  I take my part seriously and will do all I can to be a good son.  I will continue to honor my dad and take all available opportunities to tell him so.  I have this confidence that once we both pass into eternity, it will all be made right.  If need be, I can endure until then.

There are few things in life that can hurt more than a parent’s rejection.  Has this happened to you?  How did you cope?  Join the community and the conversation. Please leave a comment.  Your comments can minister to someone else.  If this helped you or you think you know someone it could help, please share it.