“Ain’t asking for forgiveness for my sins…” – Jay Z
I wonder, how many of us are asking for forgiveness from our sins? Not only asking for forgiveness from God for things we’ve done, but asking for forgiveness from our spouses if we’ve wronged them. Webster defines forgiveness as “to grant free pardon and to give up all claim on account of an offense or debt.” Did ya’ll get that? “To grant free pardon” and “to give up all claim of an offense or debt”. So basically, forgiveness is to wipe the slate clean like it never even happened. So, that means once we have truly forgiven someone, we shouldn’t be bringing up what they did 5 days, 5 months or 5 years later. And that’s not what a lot of us do when we say we “forgive” someone.
It seems like a lot of people’s definition of forgiveness looks more like “I’ll forgive you, but I won’t forget.” Which isn’t forgiveness. So why is it so hard for us to forgive?
I think a big reason why people don’t know how to forgive is because we don’t know how to deal with the hurt that person inflicted on us. I personally think it’s very hard to be able to truly grasp the concept of forgiveness if you don’t have a relationship with God. Before I became a believer, there were times that I thought I forgave people but when I look back at it, I realized that I really hadn’t forgiven them.
Yeah, I might kick it with them from time to time and on the surface I thought I wasn’t mad at them anymore but deep down inside, there was resentment that had been building up. I’ve learned that without true forgiveness, I’m hurting myself by keeping all of this negative energy inside me.
we’re all going to have to learn how to forgive because one of the many things that’s guaranteed in marriage, is that our spouse WILL do something to us that they will need to be forgiven for.
In the past, I’ve made a lot of bad decisions and treated people who had hurt me, REALLY messed up…. because I felt like they deserved it. And now when I look back at it, me trying to get them back was just as wrong as what they did to me.
Since I’ve matured more in Christ, I think I have a better understanding of forgiveness…but I’m still growing. And think of it like this, we’re all going to have to learn how to forgive because one of the many things that’s guaranteed in marriage, is that our spouse WILL do something to us that they will need to be forgiven for. And we’ll do something to them as well, and we’ll need to ask for forgiveness and it’s going to be hard to ask for forgiveness when we truly don’t understand it ourselves. And on that note, let me leave you with some things God has to say about forgiveness:
We forgive because we have been forgiven by God (Ephesians 4:32)
We forgive in obedience to God (Matthew 6:14-15; Romans 12:18)
We forgive others to gain control of our lives from hurt emotions (Genesis 4:1-8)
We forgive so we won’t become bitter and defile those around us (Hebrew 12:14-15)
BMWK – do you find it hard for you and/or your spouse to forgive each other? Why is that?