Peter's Wife: Forgiveness - part 1

about Peter's Wife   April 20, 2011

This month my husband and I have been counseling several different people with the same problem. Maybe you have been struggling with this issue or maybe, like us, you have been trying to help someone else with this trouble. That issue is unforgiveness! It seems like there is an epidemic of offended people right now.

Just because we are PWs, recognized and commissioned to serve others, doesn’t mean we never need forgiveness. And just because we have been believers for many years doesn’t mean we are pros at forgiving. Maybe because we don’t have the kind of support system our family and friends have back home, we may need a refresher course on this all important issue of forgiveness.

Some years ago my husband wrote this article on forgiveness. I’ve adapted it in places for our cross cultural community. You can see the original article written for husbands and wives at: intermin.org

Every one of us need forgiving people around us. The reason is obvious: we need forgiving because we make mistakes. That would explain two interesting facts in the Bible:

• Fact one: God’s Word urges us to pursue perfection, to grow and mature in grace, and to become like Jesus.
• Fact two: The Bible also teaches us to forgive one another. On the road of life we step on many toes, so we need to forgive and to receive forgiveness.

Knowing how much we need forgiving, you would think we would quickly forgive those who hurt us or let us down. It doesn’t work that way. We humans minimize many of our own errors and maximize the errors of others. We like to keep our offender roasting awhile before we turn off the fire of our anger and indignation. Many of us would never think of refusing forgiveness, but we surely don’t mind making the offender uncomfortable first.

Then there are other issues. How do I know when I have forgiven? How am I supposed to feel after I have forgiven? Have I forgiven if I still remember the offence or still feel pain? What needs forgiving? It’s enough to confuse a philosopher, let alone simple people like us.

Now let’s add the family and close community to those points. We know each other well and we often repeat our mistakes. So, how often am I to forgive the same thing? Fifty times? One hundred? For many of us, one hundred isn’t even close to the number of times we have repeated some errors. I’m not talking about the little irritations like squeezing the tooth paste tube in the wrong way. In our ongoing attempts to love each other, we have repeatedly hurt each other.

Through our many years of marriage and ministry, we have developed some sound principles about forgiving. Lewis Smedes’ excellent book, The Art of Forgiving, has helped me focus and clarify those principles.

Forgiveness and Feelings

You can forgive before you feel like doing it, but not before you decide to do it. Many of us wait to forgive until the magical moment when our emotions are right. Sometimes that moment never comes. When an intimate friend hurts us, the pain can last a long time. But the moment we decide to forgive, the pain will start to decrease. Until we take that step, until we decide, we are like someone with an infected splinter. The infection spreads, becoming more dangerous, even deadly!

I remember a young man who attended school with our sons. I saw him in the school clinic one day with a knee swollen to the size of a grapefruit. He had pricked his knee on a thorn. It was a small thing, hardly noticeable . . . at first. Eventually, the doctor had to lance his knee with a scalpel and drain the infection. Once he did, pain decreased and healing began. Forgiveness is like that. Until we forgive infection intensifies, but when we forgive, healing begins.

Forgiving and Forgetting

What does it mean to forgive and forget? It means you no longer allow the offence to affect your life and relationship negatively. As an example, think about Paul’s words in Philippians, chapter three. In the first few verses of the chapter, he recalls, in detail, his life before Christ apprehended him and saved him. Then, in verse thirteen, he gives us his strategy for dealing with the offences of his past:

“ . . . forgetting the past and straining forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize, for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.” (Philippians 3:13, Today’s Living Bible)

Paul remembered his past life as a persecutor, and no doubt some of those memories still brought pain. Yet he also said that he forgot his past. We might say that because of the forgiveness Paul experienced, he could remember redemptively. He remembered, but he remembered as a man forgiven, not a man condemned. When we forgive or are forgiven, memories may remain, but the memories can have a positive effect on our present experience and our future expectations.

Wrongs and Sins

The Bible, in its characteristically honest way, recounts a very dark moment in King David’s life. David, king of Israel, sees Bathsheba, the wife of a loyal general, bathing. Her husband is away at war, so David invites her over for dinner. But it isn’t food David hungers for that night.

Things happen. In time, Bathsheba discovers she is pregnant. David, fearing the consequences, conceives a plan to get Uriah to think the child Bathsheba is carrying is his. When that doesn’t work, David, king of Israel, writer of many Psalms, arranges to have Uriah- fine, honest Uriah- murdered. I don’t know where you could find a more terrible crime.

David thinks that ends the matter. But one day Nathan the prophet visits. Nathan tells David that God knows the whole affair and will judge him. During this awful period of his life, David writes one of his most penetrating poems, Psalm 51. Notice these words from the fourth verse of that psalm: “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.”

David had committed horrible wrongs against Bathsheba and Uriah. Perhaps David asked Bathsheba to forgive him, but we don’t know. He could not have asked Uriah, because Uriah had died in the ambush David arranged. What we do know is that David, with a broken heart, pleaded with God for forgiveness because he had sinned against Him.

Here is the important issue: Forgiving someone doesn’t mean that person does not have to go to God for forgiveness. We forgive the wrongs done to us. Only God can forgive the sin.

If you have hurt anyone, you can ask forgiveness for the hurt, but you still need forgiveness from God for the sin. Take both steps and healing will begin.

Forgiveness and Liking

Forgiveness doesn’t mean we have to like the person. Shirley has a husband who treats her, on most days, like a dog, and on all days like a servant. Never has this man told her he loves her. Never does he value her, appreciate her, or encourage her. In public he talks of their marriage enthusiastically, but that talk is only for the audience. Shirley’s husband has insulted her, rejected her . . . even beaten her.

Because of her peculiar circumstances, leaving home isn’t possible for her. Neither can she throw him out. So Shirley works through her anger, her hurt, and her outrage. She forgives her husband, but she doesn’t like him. How could she? She loves him, at least in the way that we are to love our enemies, for surely this man treats his wife as though he is her enemy. She would love him as a friend and even as a lover, if only her husband would let her. God does not ask Shirley to like her husband, only to love him.

Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Forgiveness does not mean that we must reconcile with the offender. Shirley is willing to reconcile with her husband, but her husband doesn’t show any desire for reconciliation with her. Paul addresses this issue in Romans, chapter twelve: 

“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” (Romans 12:18, NIV)

This could be the most difficult aspect of forgiveness to understand. Shirley consistently forgives her husband. But he never responds as she would hope. When the offender doesn’t give us grounds for reconciliation, we can still forgive even though the offender does not respond positively.

to be continued...