Saturday, May 20, 2006

Forgiveness is Action

One error that the modern person, Christian or not, commonly makes is to believe that forgiving a person means simply making a decision within your mind not to remain angry at that person. We mistakenly believe that forgiveness is separable from reconciliation, or making things right between the two parties involved. But if that was the case then forgiveness would remain merely an abstract concept and forgiveness would mean nothing.

I believe that true forgiveness means that we are willing to do good to another person as if they had done nothing wrong to us. And sometimes when a person says to themself, "I forgive them," that may be exactly what they mean. But I believe that forgiveness requires action whenever possible. Why? Because a person could merely tell themselves they forgive another person just so they don't have to deal with the guilt of not being a forgiving person.

The problem is that people like to feel good about themselves. They want to think of themselves as kind, forgiving people. And if they are ever brought to the point where they must forgive another, then suddenly they feel ashamed because deep down they don't want to forgive. So what do they do? They pray or say to themselves that they forgive the other person or party. But they still treat the person with contempt, claiming perhaps that the person has "lost their trust or respect" or that "they still need to learn their lesson."

Real forgiveness, on the other hand, requires action. Because we can deceive even ourselves, we need to let our forgiveness change the way we act. True forgiveness requires that we act to restore the relationship, regardless of whether or not we were wrong. The only way to own forgiveness is to embody it. Just as Christ was the incarnation of God's forgiveness of humankind, so we must incarnate our beliefs into action. We must stop acting self-righteous and we must take responsibility to "prove" our forgiveness. Otherwise we risk the seething anger of hostility that will eventually tear down our souls.

Finally, I hope you may gain peace, patience, and grace if you embark on this. It is perhaps the greatest challenge of maturation to learn how to forgive and reconcile. Sometimes it does in fact mean that you keep a healthy distance. There are people out there who you should not "forgive and forget" what they have done. But unless we learn to test our willingness to do good to those whom we have reason to remain angry against, we may really be hiding a great deal of anger within us against them.

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