FORGIVENESS: The Reason For Your Pain...part ll

           

     I felt led to continue with what we were talking about on pain and forgiveness and how intricately they are woven together, as just this past week, I have had to experience and put into practice some of my own thoughts and advice on forgiveness, and I can tell you that forgiveness in its practiced and active state is powerful!  Being on the receiving end of it is powerful as well!

     When you know that you have deeply hurt or harmed someone close or important to you and they have chosen to forgive you (when you ask), and not hold it against you, it really allows for healing before things fester and get worse.  We all know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of the hurt, but when we can imagine how deep or scarring our actions might be to another we are better able to see and realize we don’t want to cause pain, we want to be a part of the healing process, not the hurting process.

     In the last article I talked about forgiving people in our past who have really caused us some deep rooted pain and what we tend to view as damage—as in forever damaged, but the damage can be healed and made whole and that is exactly what God wants to do, and if we let Him do it, it will bring glory and honor to Him and His kingdom.

     Some of the problem in forgiving people who have hurt you in the past could be that the damage or abuse is still happening and or the only way it ended or will end is to distance yourself from that person or people.  This truly is a difficult situation as I have this issue in my own life and consequently don’t have certain people in my life who should be and who I ultimately want in my life.  I cannot at this time attempt to have them in my life as the relationship would not be healthy and or Christ centered. But, I do want to operate in active forgiveness toward them so that someday maybe there can be a healthy and Christ centered relationship between us.

     I am going to say something at this point and I want everyone to know that I am speaking to myself as much as anyone else—we all have pain, but we have a tendency to think or feel our pain hurts worse than someone else’s. The degree or depth of our own pain and suffering causes us to think sometimes that we have been hurt deeply enough that it somehow relinquishes us from forgiveness, both receiving it and giving it.

 

     There is nothing you have endured at the hands of any other person that could measure up to the suffering our Savior went through for us.  Nothing! This helped me when I started to really think about it—not only did Jesus endure the physical pain of being nailed to the cross, the brutal beating on His back (for our physical healing), not to mention, the emotional and psychological pain he went through, but He went through all of this KNOWING beforehand, the pain and agony to come!  If any of us knew the pain we were going to go through and we had a choice to not go through any of it, even if our pain could help or save another, we would say no thank you. He did not! Jesus is our example and He endured pain and suffering and He did it for us. Our pain is meant to help and heal another, if we let it!

Once again, this puts a different light on how we see our pain and I really believe that is the key to this active forgiveness taking up residency in our hearts.

  

     What can be a real beginning in this process of forgiveness is to remember that we are now new creations in Him, before we were born again and before we knew our Savior we were dysfunctional and unhealthy in our emotions and (probably) our bodies as well. That made functioning like productive and healthy people impossible, but now we are functioning and we are productive and we are whole by the power and the blood of Jesus.

     No more harboring bad or negative feelings or unforgiveness in our hearts. In the past, before I let Jesus show me that He would use my pain to help set others free, I couldn’t let things go because I hadn’t changed and every time my dysfunction (the scars of my past) caused me problems (almost always) I would revert to my past and blame those who have scarred me, but now I can say look at me, now that Jesus has changed the very core of who I am. I don’t want to dwell on the past anymore, I want to show the world that Jesus can do some serious changing us, if we will let Him. 

     I believe people think forgiveness just comes, you say it, and maybe you even mean it, but if you don’t become active it cannot become real and present in you and the life you now live as a new creation in Him. Now viewing or seeing our pain as damage is not the way to look at it—you are now equipped with the tools necessary to help someone else who is going through what you already have or may even still be going through. God wants you to understand that your pain has brought you to the point where you are now, and that God chose you to endure what you did so that you could be used by Him to bring someone else to that same point and place where you are now—forgiven, healed, whole and complete.

     What a different and glorious way to look at our past and the people who helped shape who we are today. And remember, the main person in your life now is Jesus and He says your past is important and not just because of the damage it has caused you, but also because it was meant to bring you to Him, and others to Him once you let Him heal you and forgiveness becomes active and real.  We can’t change if we don’t forgive or receive forgiveness.  I have to say, not thinking about someone or just not thinking hateful thoughts about someone (yourself included) is not forgiving, it is harboring and there is a big difference between the two. 

     Once we understand our pain and now how it directly relates to forgiveness for the people who inflicted or caused it, I think the next step is to ask God what role the person or people will take in your life now that real, true, deep and abiding forgiveness has begun. Maybe it won’t be any more than you really not harboring bad feelings and unforgiveness toward them, especially if they are not born again and not living their life for the Lord. But, it could be that you are the one who is going to help bring them to the Lord so you want to be in tune with what God wants for you and the other person.  Maybe for now it is active forgiveness in your heart and the relationship is going to come later, but you want active, living and abiding forgiveness in your heart and on ready. You will want a place available in your heart when that time comes. Remember, we control what goes in and out of our heart.

     Another thing that is helpful when dealing with the pain of your past and the people responsible is to think about a relationship with this person or people, think about what that would be like in its healthiest state, entertain thoughts of what it would be like to have a Christian, Christ centered relationship with them. If you find this almost impossible to do, try to remember that God wants them to make heaven their home just as much as He wants you there!  2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise…, but is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (NKJV)

      If forgiveness were an easy thing to do would Jesus have told us so many times that we must forgive or we will not be forgiven? I don’t think so. Again I will say, He is our perfect example, no one could go through what He endured for us and not only forgive us, but want a relationship with us afterwards and He wants us to do the same thing with those who have hurt us. We can only do that by abiding in His forgiveness, in and of ourselves we cannot.

     Sometimes when it is hard to get along with someone I remind myself that they are going to be in heaven with me so I better learn to not only get along with them, but I better learn to love them as well! Do we think heaven is full of people who just go around ignoring or tolerating each other? I don’t think so.

     Whatever we do is supposed to bring glory and honor to God and believe me when you extend forgiveness to someone the secular world would say doesn’t deserve it you bring Him glory and people want to know this God who could heal those kind of deep wounds. Let’s try to remember that the next time we are licking our wounds and wallowing in the pain of our past. 

     Jesus wants us living and abiding in the same kind of forgiveness He died to give us.

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