ForgivenessCanBeVeryHard

Forgiveness Can Be Very HARD

What is Forgiveness?  When is it Hard?  What role does that play in marriage?

Purpose:  to provide something to think about.  Maul it over.  It will take time to wrestle with self over this…

Some possible situations / scenarios:

You have fought (Yes, I use this to indicate it was more than just a disagreement.) and things were said that hurt both of you.  (If we can settle before the sun sets that is scripturally recommended, the better.)  However one or both come together a seek forgiveness of the other.  (It is understood that for it work it requires more than the speaking,  ‘I’m sorry’.  That each must acknowledge their error.).  This discussion was such that you are willing to accept the person’s plea for forgiveness and you so state that.

Scriptures:

Matthew 18:21-35 (ESV)
²¹  Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”
²²  Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Read Verses 23-34 about the example provided by Jesus that end with this verse

³⁵  So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

Colossians 3:13 (ESV)
¹³  bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Wouldn’t it be hard to tell the person who murdered your son that you forgive him?  We hear that often, yet we state those words and now what do we do with it in our own soul?  Do we forget our son was killed?  NO –what behavior are to be involved in with self?  We make that statement, but we regress and find yourself angry at the person again.  Now what?

We can not say we have forgiven the person and then continue to harbor anger toward the killer.  Thus, we’d have to bring our selves back to the same peaceful mental state within self that we arrived at when making the ‘forgiveness statement’.

Using that scenario as an example how do we apply to our home life?  As stated above, we had a rather nasty disagreement with words and or actions said and done that hurt us and we came to the place where we forgave each other.

What happens when we find ourselves in another regretful disagreement and words or actions that are wrong was said?  HURT occurs!  –  We fire back a litany of crimes that our partner has done in the past.  We tick them off one by one!  The past comes flowing out of self.

My question is:  When we stated that we forgave a situation is it Christian to bring any of those up again?  When we respond over and over with the same hurtful scenario as our triggering base what have we failed to do after we accepted the other’s forgiveness posture?

YES, we forgive – but do we forget is the problem!

However, do we still remember because we didn’t work hard at trying to put it aside?  Or do we justify that our memory is still there and hurl spears at the other over the past.

Even if our memory is still there that we at least need to not use a past hurtful and forgiven events up.  How  do we deal?  This is a VERY hard thing and takes a lot of work and prayer to resolve within our soul.

a POINT:

We need to be better at understanding what forgiveness really means and the depth of conflict for our spouse.

Life Application Bible Commentary:

^[1] Barton, B. B., Veerman, D., & Wilson, N. S. (1992). James (p. 143). Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.