For the past week, I have traded in the Lord's Prayer for Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep as the capstone prayer with my kids each night. The reason for that can be found in one line: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." I do not want God to apply my standard of forgiveness to myself at this particular juncture. Right now, I have one person I don't want to forgive.
This is, I freely admit, not a very Christ-like mindset. As he hung gasping for breath, ravaged by pain, suffering from shock due to physical abuse and blood loss, moments away from being separated from his Father for the first time in eternity, he somehow found the love to utter, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
I could argue that some of that mercy came as a result of that last phrase: "they know not what they do." Ignorance is generally a mediating factor, to my way of thinking. But in this situation, ignorance can't be used as an excuse . . . what my almost-ex is doing he is doing with eyes wide open and without any visible sign of remorse. (My counselors keep reminding me I cannot know what he is thinking, and I grudgingly admit they are right . . . hence the word "visible.")
Tonight, however, as God will, He gave me a shake and is beginning to work on my heart.
I was covering the Farm Credit East 100th Anniversary and Customer Appreciation event this evening, a 45-minute drive from home. I kept moving to turn on the radio and escape from my thoughts and kept being reminded that my radio was already on and simply refused to transmit sound.
Then God began to speak. (Don't try to tell me He didn't break my radio . . . I'm sure He did! I only hope my mechanic can fix it tomorrow!)
I heard God say, "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you." I answered, I don't love him. I don't want to love him. I almost added, "and you can't make me," but I knew enough to stop before that! (Remember the radio . . . !)
So I began to truly ponder the nature of forgiveness, I think for the first time in my life. What is forgiveness, really? How do you forgive someone and maintain healthy boundaries? What kind of feelings, if any, are connected with forgiveness, and how do you manage them appropriately? And how does love play into forgiveness when the violation is so intensely elemental?
1. What is forgiveness?
Not too tough. It's willingly letting go of a debt owed to you. My ex is in debt to me. I deserve retribution. Can I choose not to try exacting revenge and leave that to God?
The first step for me will have to be changing some nomenclature. I've been a bit Homeric lately, granting my soon-to-be ex a descriptive epithet. (Not so much "Faithful Penelope" as, say, "My cheating, 2-timing skunk of an ex.")
While in the short term that definitely provides a sense of satisfaction, I already feel the rancor eating away at my soul. As I reminded my son yesterday, "Holding onto anger doesn't hurt the person you're angry with; it only hurts you." From now on I bestow upon him a new epithet: "my kids' dad." Not quite as dramatic, but far less detrimental to all involved.
2. How do I forgive and maintain healthy boundaries?
This is challenging, as I am still learning what those healthy boundaries look like. In short, they are supposed to keep out the bad and let in the good. Okay. So . . . ?
So. If I let go of the pursuit of retribution, I am showing forgiveness. If I then open myself up to being hurt and betrayed again, I'm being stupid. ("Fool me once . . . ") So while I do not try to create pain and suffering for him, I also must prevent him from creating any more pain and suffering for me.
Right now, that means that unless it has a direct bearing on the kids, it's none of his concern. And (swallow hard) the same is true for him. How am I feeling? None of his concern. How is my work going? None of his concern. Where or with whom is he spending his time? None of my concern. How is he feeling? None of my concern. As long as the kids aren't involved, it's none of my concern.
As someone who has spent most of her life trying to make people happy, ease their discomfort, or take the blame for their failings, this is a tough one. As a person who was literally joined together in the sight of God and man until the two became one flesh, this is incredibly tough. But it is necessary.
3. As for feelings?
Blah on feelings! The truth is that every possible human emotion is flying around within my person at any given time, crashing into each other like atoms and releasing the most unexpected explosions of joy, anger, relief, and so much more. I think I will let the feelings be. Let them come. I will name them, accept them, and pray over them. That's all I can do right now!
4. What about that pesky "love"?
What, the love that defines God? Yeah. That love. I Corinthians 13 says it all: Love is patient, kind, not self-seeking, not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not rejoice in evil but delights in the truth, always protects, always hopes, always perseveres, never fails.
Nothing in there about feelings. All about action and motive. It goes back to those boundaries. Should I maintain those emotional walls? ABSOLUTELY. Should I be snotty about it as I kinda was when he came to get the kids today? Absolutely NOT. One can be cordial without being close. Cordiality is the goal.
My anger remains. That is okay. (Refer back to #3.) What is not okay is sinning with that anger. I admit I have sinned by failing to love my kids' dad this week. I ask God's forgiveness. And in this digital confessional, I ask the forgiveness of those I've hurt with that anger, both intentionally and unintentionally.
Starting tonight, I am choosing to forgive him . . . and his girlfriend as well. I trust that in time my feelings will match my intentions. I will fail in living this out . . . probably many times! . . . but one thing I know for certain: tonight before I fall asleep I will again be able to pray the Lord's Prayer . . . every line.
Your stance of “none of my concern” is spot on--a very good way of restating Matthew 18:17-20. What you say is good and right--truth that sets you free.
ReplyDeleteSince love sides happily with truth, let it also side with the truth the Scripture teaches about forgiveness, and find freedom that you are not yet enjoying.
. Deuteronomy 29:20-21 and Isaiah 2:9 make it crystal clear that God is never willing to forgive impenitents who accuse God of wrong when they justify their sin before him as good. Per John 20:23, God expects you to withhold forgiveness or give forgiveness based on whether or not He forgives. Clearly He withholds forgiveness from many, and calls you to judge rightly and render forgiveness only when appropriate. See Ezk 13:19.
Note that the Lord's prayer in Matthew 5 is preceded by a call to penitent confession in Matt 4:23-26. This section applies to the offender, not the offended. This pattern recurs in a confrontational call to confess in contrition and restitution in Matthew 18:15-20. This comes before the call to forgiveness, which is given if and only if penitence is present. The antecedent precedes the consequent: penitence must precede forgiveness, or forgiveness is a meaningless pretense that actually harms both parties.
You are right in putting vengeance in God's hands. That is His prerogative, and He will do a much better job than you ever could, and for good reasons:
In sinning, your ex effaced his very nature, and is worth very little (Prov 10:20). God's love now moves in wrath to resist the loss of your ex’s nature, a resistance which is inextricably linked to God's love for you, avenging the wrong he did you.
Fretting over the wicked (Psa 37) is absurd because they have effaced their value. What benefit is there in calling nothing a something? Add Shakespeare to your Homer: “nothing comes of nothing.” Your ex is returning to nothing, having dug a pit for you and fallen into it himself.
God's Word is clear, and, in muddling it with things you have heard from pietistic churchgoers who veil the Scripture, you are harming yourself. Please desist, my sister. It pains me to see you do this
"Stop trusting in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?"
Do not "blah" on your feelings. They are rightly there to prod you to investigate thoroughly rather than relying on the words of mere men, which have clearly distorted your understanding of forgiveness and love. You ignore your intuition at great peril and pain, which is one of the reasons you are still so despondent. The Psalms and Prophets engage feelings as an important facet of understanding and wisdom. They are not insignificant or irrelevant. No part of you is irrelevant.
Read Psalms 18, 35, 69, 101, and 143. Your Father loves you passionately enough to trample out your enemies, who have repaid you evil for good, and have committed treachery without excuse. Per Isaiah 43, He is committed to devoting whole nations to destruction in exchange for you.
Your ex and his girlfriend's actions and words indeed speak false accusation against you, and it is a heavy weight to bear (Prov 27:3). I acknowledge that I struggle as you do under a similar burden, and it is harrowing. One simply has to acknowledge the weight, and the relative worthlessness of the person who puts it on you. Even so, your loving God will soon disburden you of them. He will free you to serve Him without fear.
Feed on faithfulness and trust in His Word rather than the words of mere men. No matter what their qualifications may seem to be, men and women can teach you nothing, because your Teacher is the One who wrote the Law and Prophets (I Jn 2:27).
It is also divine to withhold forgiveness:
ReplyDelete"The LORD will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the LORD and his jealousy will smoke against that man..." -Deut 29:20
"So man is humbled, and each one is brought low— do not forgive them!" --Isa 2:9
"Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.". -Jn 20:22-23
"By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme." -I Tim 1:19-20
The idea of universal forgiveness is not Scriptural. It cannot apply to the impenitent, for they are always, by defending their sin before God, calling God a liar. Who would be so treacherous as to side with God's enemies against Him?
Forgiveness only belongs among those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because only those who know how to love justly are capable of participating in God's love. Their deepest hunger is to "follow justice and justice alone" (Deut 16:20), The same justice Hosea (2:21-22) and David (II Sam 23) describe as responsiveness: which sets aside worldly responsibility to be as responsive as the Good Samaritan, who imitates God's own thirst for justice expressed in the kenosis of Christ, who set aside His own life to renew His justice and love in the hearts of His people.
Not so the wicked. They do not hunger and thirst for justice, but for sin (Psa 36:1).
Forgiveness is a matter of right judgment, the Hebrew word for which connotes careful inquiry (Deut 13, 17, 19). Thus Christ says we are to "know them by their fruit," distinguishing swine and dogs on one hand, from pearls on the other hand (Matt 7), and protecting the pearls because all our delight is in them (Psa 16:3) We certainly have no delight in dogs and swine.
Once you do know a pearl, forgiveness becomes a natural response to repentance. The Triune God, who has taken up residence in each of the pearls, initiates and guides such responsiveness through conviction and the overflowing wellspring of life within both.
Forgiveness occurs as part of a broader growth of both persons in God's just love. It is a means, not an end in itself. We are blessed with mourning our sin, so that we may justly approach a fellow pearl in meekness, while the other meekly forgives. The whole process renders the beauty of what Paul speaks of in Ephesians: "submit to one another out of love." By such submission, justice bears the fruit of peace (Isa 32), so that those who mourn sin, and hunger and thirst for justice, end up being peacemakers. They are pure in heart, forgiveness being inextricably tied to a lack of deceit (Psa 32). The beatitudes unfolding like a fragrant flower...
Yet as Isaiah tells us, "there is no peace for the wicked," because there is no forgiveness, because there is no hunger and thirst for justice or mourning over sin. They are despondent rather than responsive. Forgiveness and Grace are ineffectual for them, per Isa 26.
Forgiveness is a sacred exchange: "do not give to dogs what is sacred."
If you could only see the beauty of this truth, and how it frees you from dogs and swine in order to “serve God without fear,” I think you could learn to trust again. You could see that careful inquiry by Scripture and prayer can help you distinguish between dogs and swine on one hand, and pearls on the other--shaking the dust off your feet with regard to the former, and embracing the latter with genuine love. There are luminaries/pearls who really do hunger and thirst for just, mutually submissive love. To find them, you must break free of the unscriptural worldly “wisdom” of men, which tells you not to judge, and engage with the teaching of unveiled Scripture which is yours by the One and only Teacher per I Jn 2:27. Embrace Wisdom. Call her your sister and she will deliver and protect you, leading you to your desired haven even in this life.
My intent is not that you should hold a grudge, but that you should give the matter entirely over (devote it) to God, and find rest from striving against the treachery of an accuser. This is what the psalmists are doing all the time: crying out in the face of violence (violation of covenant justice) for God to observe and act. In doing so they cast their cares on the God who cares for them, seeking refuge in the almighty God of steadfast love. God loves the refuge seeker who does not compromise truth for the sake of a false peace, but flees to him as a just-loving Father.
DeleteJust as you ought not burden yourself with vengeance, so you ought not burden yourself with forgiveness for those who will not repent. In both cases you afflict your mind and heart with a lie. Vengeance belongs to God, and he does not forgive those who refuse to repent, for their refusal is calling evil good and good evil, accusing God of being a liar, an act which goes against all nature, including the nature of the accuser, for sin is self-destructive (see Prov 1-6).
God does not indulge such things, any more than an oncologist indulges cancer. He will aggressively treat the disorder in proper time. His wrath is an expression of his love: burning away the cancer of sin, while also vindicating the victim. When God acts, it is a relief to both perpetrator and victim. Per Isa 33:1, woe, like a debt, plagues the betrayer until God repays him to his face, He will actually find relief in the balancing of justice, even as pain replaces the angst of his conscience, which has testified against him.
You need not fear hypocrisy in any of this. Of course none of us have a righteousness of our own. But there are those who willingly share in God's righteousness, and those who willfully reject “the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” The difference is vast between hungering and thirsting for justice (Matt 5:6), and craving evil (Ps 36:1).
We can do nothing without Christ, but can do all (good) things through him. There is therefore no room for boasting in anything, but only the contentedness of obedience, including obedience to John 20:23 by careful inquiry into Word and deed, by the Spirit’s counsel. Such truth sets one free from lies which burden us beyond God's just and loving measure.
Treachery is a weighty matter which is beyond our strength, whether in vengeance or forgiveness. Take your cue from David, who left such matters to God, so that he could be as content as a weaned child with it's mother. God will vindicate you and lift you up above your enemies. “Cast your cares on Him, for He cares for you.”
I have found great solace in singing the Psalms from the Trinity Psalter Hymnal app. They take on fresh meaning when put to melody, and the app wonderfully incorporates music, wherein all four parts are played by the piano accompaniment.
DeleteIt has been my number one study tool for sight reading as a tenor. I am still somewhat slow, and have to hum the notes before combining word and melody, but I am improving.
The Psalter Hymnal also includes many of the hymns you have been singing at CBC.
How good it is to impart truth to one another by “singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” It is one of the best ways to beat back the darkness with truth. I think you and your children would find great peace in introducing this to your daily rhythm. Simple corporate meditation and song form the good soil and streams of water for everyday growth, as Bonhoeffer wonderfully elaborates in his “Life Together.”