Straying From The Thoughts of Forgiveness

“Forgiveness does not mean excusing. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart.” - C.S. Lewis

For months, I have been working on a manuscript that would highlight my passion for social justice, faith and spiritual development, and truth and racial healing. In some ways, it has always been difficult for me to express my full thoughts on certain subjects. To be quite honest, I really did not think my voice mattered amongst the sea of intellectuals who possibly knew more and had more degrees and research than I could fathom.

However, turning 40 recently, I learned that the voice that I hold matters. I came to the realization that I had to stop centering other’s opinions, and be my authentic self. For years I masqueraded as if I was confident in my voice, but I was only living in the shadows of others who I believed had more to say than me. Over time, I grew in the fulfillment that my authentic self is a Black man with a foundation built on a faith and spirituality which directs me to center the oppressed; “setting the captives free.” Using my story and the foundation of scriptural interpretation and spiritual development to release people from the bondage from their oppression.

I am not concluding that my words are inspired by the God of the Universe and people should take them as spiritual truths. I am no Moses, but I do look at historical and present matters of the heart and do an exegetical interpretation of biblical text coupled with my skills of counseling, and look at how it relates to our everyday lives and how we all move, act and respond to one another. Utilizing a critical look at scripture, I hope that those who choose to read my words will glean an authentic way to interact with their fellow human beings and heal from past hurts, so we can truly see one another as our Creator sees us.

The first task I want to take on is the question of forgiveness. Forgiveness in its simplest context is a tough topic to speak on depending on whom you are engaging. We all may have experienced internal and external wounds from individuals or groups that seem impossible to forgive. No matter how much we wrestle with the pain; trying to suppress it or to move past the trauma of hurt, it all comes back to the question, how can I forgive them? 

I took on this topic because I am currently working through my own process of forgiveness. How do I reconcile with a person who has spent months causing me and my family immediate harm and years behind my back trying to dismantle my character in my community? Though I have been blessed to be surrounded by a small close-knit community of individuals who pray for me and my family, it still does not fully placate my emotions of anger, sadness, and grief that this person caused to my wife, my children, and even me--so much so my wife and I had to take out a restraining order because they moved from emotional harm to physical harm.

What further saddens me and toils on my strings of forgiveness, is that this one single individual has triangulated and made close family members complicit. The topic of forgiveness is raw and real for me. However, because I believe that God through Jesus Christ requires me to forgive, there have been moments I have had to repent and confess hourly so I would not be overtaken with rage. I refuse to “give place to the devil” (Eph. 4:27-30). 

When considering forgiveness, other areas of internalized contemplation and contention come when we consider the following: To whom should forgiveness be offered? How should it be implemented? How often should one forgive a person(s) or group(s) who hurt them? Is there a limit to the number of times one should forgive? If one forgives, does that mean the relationship is the same as it was before? 

Peter, one of the disciples of Jesus, who would eventually become one of the major Apostles in the formation of the Christian Church, asked in Matthew 18:21, “How often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?” Jesus quickly responds to Peter’s question, informing him that seven times is just not enough in the cycle of forgiveness as someone who follows God. To God, forgiveness requires more; it requires “seventy times seven.” 

Is it possible the Creator knows something more about the human condition than we do? Is it possible the Creator knew that people would sin against us and harm us and that folx would hurt our bodies and emotions beyond measure? Is it possible because he knew these things, forgiveness was not for the person who harmed us, but for ourselves? You could be different, showing that one can be ultimately connected with the source of creation.

However, when there is damage to a relationship, forgiveness does not come without consequence. As Christians, sometimes we have a very eisegetical (putting our own spin or interpretation of scripture) view of scripture when it comes to forgiveness. When we struggle with forgiving others, we quickly find ourselves flipping to Matthew 6.14 where Jesus of Nazareth informs us we must forgive in order for us to receive forgiveness from God. 

This passage of scripture, though a tough teaching is true. However, what typically is interpreted from this passage is that we have to “forgive and forget” and quickly get over the offense; “grin and bear” the pain someone put us through. We must then normalize the tragedy for the sake of others and move on with life as an offense has never happened. This is not true biblical forgiveness. It is not an exegetical reading of that scripture or any scripture in the Bible on authentic forgiveness. Further, it goes against the very nature of how we were created.

The way our minds are hardwired, forgiving and forgetting is rarely the case. The power of a single experience can engrain in our long-term memory to the point that “it becomes a cue for future expectations” (Dike-Oduah, Kanayo. Psychology Forgiveness: Psychology Meets Scripture, 2020). Imagine having a number of bad experiences, such as emotional and/or physical abuse and trauma happening over and over to you over a course of a long period of time, “it leaves a “biological footprint on our brains; you cannot go inside your brain and rewire the neural connections that have strengthened those memories over time” (Dike-Oduah, Kanayo). 

It is important to note as we navigate forgiveness, it does not mean we have forgotten or can forget, because our “memories are both biological and psychological” (Dike-Oduah, Kanayo). But traveling the path to true forgiveness is even when I remember the faults of others I do not hold it against them. “Forgiveness is relating to someone according to their God-given identity and not according to their mistakes” (Dike-Oduah, Kanayo). 

If we take a look at YHWH, for Jews and Christians alike, who is our ultimate example, when His chosen people broke covenant with Him, He pulled away from them and allowed them to feel the full effects and consequences of their wrongdoing. God is the ultimate example of forgiveness and within Himself forgiveness comes even before it can be asked of Him. However, consequences still took place because of the rupture in the relationship. It was only when the Hebrew people repented, asking for forgiveness; not just crying with manipulative tears, but genuinely “humbled themselves and turned from their “wicked ways” (2 Chronicles 7:14), that God expressed outward visible forgiveness. 

Even in that, sometimes the outward expression of forgiveness was not immediate and sometimes the relationship was so severed it took years. God promised that He would remember them, but in that present moment, the relationship was so badly broken, He did not want to hear their songs of praise or even get gifts (burnt offerings) from them (Amos 5.21).

When harm has been done in a relationship, even when there is forgiveness, the relationship changes; it doesn’t look the same, and parties do not exchange in the same manner. There is a plethora of examples in the biblical text that view forgiveness through this lens, one such story ultimately sticks out to me and can be found in Numbers 14. 

This passage of scripture, tells the story of the Hebrew people on the peripheral of Canaan (The Promise Land). Joshua and the other scouts had just returned from spying on the people of Canaan and assessing the land. Upon their return to camp, Joshua and Caleb gave a report on the land assuring their kin folks they could overtake the people and possess the land. 

Consequently, there were a few scouts that were disheartened by their visit. They were afraid and inadvertently put fear into the Hebrew nation. Due to their negative report, the Hebrew people refused to enter the land and plotted against Moses and Aaron to remove them from leadership. Because of the people’s disobedience and plotting, God planned to kill them, however, Moses interceded. With Moses' intercession, God did not destroy them, but an entire generation of the Hebrew people were not allowed to enter into the Promised Land.

Reading this story, we find that the Hebrew people repented wholeheartedly and God forgives them. However, their refusal to trust him caused a rift in their relationship. Forgiveness was offered, but the consequences still stood the same. The normalcy and the access that this generation of the Hebrews once had to God, had changed. God did not hold their past sins against them after he forgave them, but the relational arrangement he had with the people was different than before. Forgiveness did not change the outcome of God’s judgment.  

Forgiveness is a must by God's standards of holiness; however, after forgiveness, the relationship between the offended and the offender will be different. In the process of a great wrong, even if forgiveness is offered, interaction with the person who has done the wrong may take days, weeks, months, even years.