Redefining Forgiveness

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Ever struggled to forgive someone, even when you know it's the right thing to do? That's a journey we're all familiar with, and in this episode, we seek to unravel the complexities of forgiveness and share insights that could transform your perspective.

Throughout our conversation, we tackle the misconceptions surrounding forgiveness. We delve into the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation, exploring why letting go of bitterness is a personal decision, while rebuilding trust requires mutual effort. With personal stories, theological insights, and the wisdom of figures like Martin Luther King Jr., we challenge the notion that forgiveness is a sign of weakness. Instead, we present it as a profound act of strength and liberation, capable of opening doors to healing and growth in both personal relationships and broader societal contexts.

This episode seeks to redefine forgiveness by examining its spiritual and emotional dimensions. It’s not about ignoring or excusing harm, but about acknowledging the truth and choosing to release resentment. By discussing how forgiveness aligns with redemption and underscores the importance of boundaries, we highlight that it doesn’t erase the memory of wrongdoing but cancels the emotional debt without removing accountability. Join us as we explore how the act of forgiveness can be a powerful tool for personal transformation and a catalyst for hope in our everyday lives.

Episode Transcript

Mac (00:02):
Welcome to Praxis, a podcast where we explore how to
practice and embody the way ofJesus in our everyday lives.
Thanks so much for taking thetime to listen.
Today we're starting a newseries on the topic of
forgiveness.
Few topics are more central tothe Christian faith.
Forgiveness is at the veryheart of the gospel.
Through Jesus, god offers usthe gift of forgiveness and

(00:24):
invites us into a restoredrelationship.
Jesus embodies the forgivenessof God toward us when he prays
on the cross Father, forgivethem, for they know not what
they do.
God's forgiveness towards us isa cause for great celebration.
It's easy to rejoice in God'sgift of forgiveness.
We often have a really hard timepracticing forgiveness

(00:45):
ourselves.
While the New Testament callsus to forgive others in the same
way that God has forgiven us,the truth is we often struggle
to extend forgiveness to otherswho have hurt us or wronged us.
Rather than embracing thefreedom and transformation that
comes with forgiveness,including the possibility of
reconciled relationship, we getstuck in bitterness and
resentment, to our own detriment.

(01:06):
So in this series, we wannatalk about how to actually
practice and embody theforgiveness that Jesus invites
and challenges us to live into,whether it's learning how to
receive God's forgiveness orasking others to forgive you, or
extending forgiveness to others.
Our hope and prayer is thatyou'd sense God's invitation to
go deeper into practicing theway of Jesus with us.

(01:27):
So, with that in mind, today wewant to kick off this series by
clarifying what we are eventalking about when we use the
word forgiveness.
What is forgiveness and whatisn't forgiveness?
That's where we're headed today.
Let's get into it.

Katie (01:53):
Welcome everyone.
My name is Katie.

Josiah (01:55):
And I'm Mac, I'm Josiah.

Katie (01:57):
So I got up and got on the Peloton this morning.
You guys know I like my Pelotonbike and the ride this morning
had a music theme and it was 90srock and it was so much fun.
Like I was surprised how Iremembered the words to like all
these songs I hadn't heard andso I'm thinking sitting here, we
were all born in the 80s, rightLike, grew up in the 80s and

(02:18):
then into the 90s.
So what were some of yourfavorite—?

Mac (02:21):
Technically.
So what were some of yourfavorite Technically?
Technically, josiah, I'm old 89, though You're getting old and
Josiah is young.

Katie (02:25):
I'm mid-80s, I was 89, so it's okay, oh, okay.

Josiah (02:27):
You're technically an 80s man.
Technically.

Katie (02:29):
So do you remember the 90s?
Yeah, okay.

Mac (02:37):
Did you listen to 90s music ?

Katie (02:39):
Yeah, okay.
Well, I mean, he's a musicgenius.
You probably listened andremember.

Josiah (02:43):
That is a strong statement, but yes.

Katie (02:44):
So what are some of your favorite 90s bands?

Mac (02:47):
Okay, so this is a tricky question because on the one hand
, I grew up in kind of aconservative Christian home.

Katie (02:55):
You can say DC Talk Mac.

Mac (02:59):
That was kind of like 80s, but then into the 90s.
Yeah, I remember my dad coachedour hockey team and so we had a
lot of travel and he was reallyinto the Jesus Freak album.

Katie (03:07):
So that was like on replay every time we were in the
car.
No wonder our dads are friends,because my dad was also into
the Jesus Freak album.

Mac (03:15):
But I remember a couple things I remember.
So this is more schoolinfluence.
You wouldn't find this in ourhome, but like the kids
listening to Nirvana, I rememberthat being a thing.
And then I also remember thisdistinct moment.
We lived in Georgia at the time.
I spent two years in Georgiaand all of a sudden I'm in my

(03:36):
room and all of a sudden I hearlots of yelling.
And my older sister had gottenin trouble because my parents
had discovered an AlanisMorissette scene.
And I just remember my dadbeing like jagged little pill.
Do you know what that means?
And it was like this thing.
So most of my memories aroundlike music, uh from the nineties

(03:57):
was like either jamming to likeChristian artists or people
getting in trouble Cause it'snot Christian, Uh huh.

Josiah (04:05):
Yeah, I remember my older brother.
My dad must have heard what hewas listening to, because he
would.
I mean, it was back in the daywhen you had CDs For younger
people you don't even know whatthose are, but like CD booklets
and he had a really thick onefull of, you know, organizing
all of his CDs to listen to inhis truck.
And my dad must have figuredout that he had some stuff he

(04:27):
shouldn't have.
It was stuff like Metallica andhard rock stuff, and when my
dad found it he took it outsideand he took every single CD and
snapped it over the curb withhis foot.

Katie (04:43):
While your brother watched.

Josiah (04:44):
Yeah, but what he found out like as my brother is
yelling and very angry, he'slike those weren't even my CDs.
I was borrowing them fromfriends.

Mac (04:56):
I just love that.
Everybody who grew up in aChristian home like this
probably has had some experience.

Katie (05:01):
Yep, I got mine.
I asked for the Chumbawamba CD,I was given the Chumbawamba CD,
I was given the Chumbawamba CDand then my Chumbawamba CD was
taken away when my parentslooked at the lyrics or heard
from a friend what it actuallywas.
But did they snap?

Mac (05:14):
it.

Katie (05:15):
They didn't snap it.

Mac (05:15):
Okay, they didn't snap it.
Oh, that is so funny.

Katie (05:18):
If I were being honest, though, I loved, like Hootie and
the Blowfish.
Goo.
Goo Dolls.
I hope my husband doesn'tlisten to this episode because
I'm never going to hear the endof it.
But you're nodding, Adam.
You agree with Alex.
You agree with me.

Adam (05:30):
Oh no you, those are great bands.

Katie (05:31):
Oh, I think so too.
Yeah, matchbox 20.

Adam (05:34):
Yeah, that's true.
Okay, I feel like the 90s andand 2000s or 90s.
They definitely started in the90s.

Katie (05:42):
They started in the 90s.
Yeah, I think of them as 90s.

Josiah (05:47):
Even some of those like 80s rock bands blended into the
90s too, like Metallica, hadlike a pretty large following at
that in the 90s.

Mac (05:55):
I think, honestly, most of my knowledge of music came from,
like, the weight room and thelocker room.
So that's how I got exposed tohigh school.

Katie (06:05):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
I think 90s was the greatestera of music, but I'm biased.

Adam (06:09):
Wow I wonder how Swifters, swifties, swifties feel about
that statement.

Katie (06:18):
Yeah, she probably wasn't even born.
She was probably born in the90s.

Mac (06:23):
Well, speaking of outdated music, we are stepping into a
new series, and I want to startit by summarizing a parable that
Jesus told in Matthew 18.
It's sometimes titled theparable of the unmerciful
servant servant, and the contextof this parable is Peter, one

(06:48):
of the disciples, asking Jesushow many times one is required
to forgive someone else, and hethinks he's like stretching the
possibility of forgiveness bygoing seven times.
And Jesus goes no, not seventimes, peter, nope, but like 70
times seven.
In other words, you never stopforgiving.
And then Jesus goes right intothis parable of the unmerciful
servant and basically the waythe story goes is there's a

(07:10):
servant who owes a king 10,000talents.
A talent was sort of like aunit of weight and, depending
upon what you were weighing,like gold or silver that would
determine how much money theywere talking about.
But just to put it inperspective, if it had been gold
, that would be about $23billion today.
Whoa, yeah.

(07:31):
So the idea, like Jesus isbasically saying like this is an
unpayable debt.
There's no way you're evergoing to be able to pay this
back.
Um, it's too much.
Um, now, when you were unableto pay off a debt in this
culture, typically you and yourfamily would be sold into
slavery.
But this servant begins to begthis king for mercy and promises

(07:53):
to repay everything, which, ofcourse, he's not gonna be able
to do, but out of greatcompassion, this king has mercy
on this servant and forgives theentire debt $23 billion.
Now you'd think this guy wouldbecome incredibly gracious and
sort of a forgiving person, butthe exact opposite thing happens
.
Shortly after this, the servantencounters someone who is in

(08:16):
debt to him 100 denarii, whichwas about a day's wages, so like
three months of work, butdefinitely a repayable debt
wages, so like three months ofwork, but definitely a repayable
debt.
And this servant responds thesame way he had responded to the
king.
He starts begging for mercy andpromises to pay it all back,
but the servant, instead ofshowing mercy and compassion and

(08:38):
forgiving, throws this guy intoprison.
And then the parable ends onthis rather dire note where the
king hears about it and getsreally angry and is outraged and
takes this guy, who he hadforgiven, and throws him into
prison.
Right the parable.
The reason why I want to startwith that is because it really
captures, I think, the tensionwe're wanting to attend to in

(09:00):
this series, and it's simplythis on the one hand, it's easy
to celebrate God's forgivenesstowards us, right Like
forgiveness is central to thegospel.
God took on flesh in Jesus andwent to the cross to forgive us
and give us new life.
Jesus embodies the forgivenessof God.
We'll get more into this bypraying Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do.

(09:20):
So, on the one hand, we knowthat forgiveness is what God
offers us in Jesus and it'ssomething to receive and
celebrate and rejoice in.
We're grateful for it.
We're thankful for it.
But on the other hand, if we'rehonest, we really struggle to
forgive other people, just likethe unmerciful servant.
Instead of forgiving others theway that God has forgiven us,
we often forget that we refuseto forgive.

(09:43):
We harbor grudges, nurse wounds, hold on to bitterness and
resentment, often to our owndetriment.
And so in this series we hopeto we're going to cover, I think
, a lot of ground, but we hopeto talk about the patterns that
keep us stuck, like here's whywe get stuck in unforgiveness,
and we plan to talk about howJesus forgave people and then
explore some of his teachings,and then I hope that we'll get

(10:06):
really specific and sort ofoutline, a process of how to
forgive in light of all of that.
So that's kind of where we'reheaded in this series as a whole
, and I thought let's starttoday by just talking about what
forgiveness is and isn't.
So we're kind of all on thesame page.
That sound good.

Josiah (10:23):
Yeah, yeah, I think there's a lot of reasons why
people don't or I should say whypeople resist forgiveness with
the people in their lives, and Ithink that's due to I think
it's due to a lot of confusionaround it.
People resist forgiving otherpeople cause they confuse

(10:44):
forgiveness with what it isn't.
Um, uh, one of the things Ithought about, um, before we get
into like all these things it'snot is, um, I think sometimes
this, uh, this idea gets createdthat that forgiveness sort of
like fixes everything like amagic wand.
You know, there's like a fairygodmother who kind of just says

(11:06):
I forgive you and everything'sgreat.
Now I think about when I wasgrowing up.
We were sort of trained in ourhousehold to forgive each other
and I think there was a lot ofgood that came from that.
You know, like if someone saidsorry, you were forced to say I

(11:26):
forgive you.
Forced, yeah, I meanessentially, and I think it did
some good work, like when thewrongs are very small, things
like as kids like you know,someone hit you and they said
sorry, I forgive, you know, andyou kind of move on.
And they said sorry, I forgive,and you kind of move on.
But when we try to apply thatto broader things or things that

(11:49):
are much more harmful.
Damage has been done andforgiveness starts to be equ.
That's fixing it.
All, I think, often holds usback from pressing into the work

(12:11):
that you know.
Yeah, like what do you do?

Mac (12:16):
Like mom, dad just took my friend's CDs and broke all of
them over the curb, you knowlike what do we do then?
Yeah, when it's bigger things,you know.

Josiah (12:26):
Yeah, that's so funny.
But no, like, uh, but most ofus I would think most of us
listening or here at the tablecould identify people in our
lives who have wronged us insome very real ways.
And, uh, if we equateforgiveness with the process of
cleaning up the entire mess andhealing and all these things,
with the process of cleaning upthe entire mess and healing and
all these things, and assumethat it's all going to be done

(12:47):
just because I chose to, I thinkthat it creates confusion
around what God is inviting usinto when we practice it.

Mac (12:56):
I like the idea of like what you're naming around it.
Almost some people resist itbecause it feels like we're just
waving a magic wand and almostlike the wand erases what just
happened and our memory of itand then boom, now we're just
supposed to go on and continueas if nothing happened, when in
fact something did happen right,yeah, yeah.

Josiah (13:16):
And if we don't identify that, what will often happen is
we'll just choose one or theother, like we'll either, you
know, say fine, I forgive you,and choose it before we've
really processed it, or we willresist forgiving and we'll hold
on to it, and we sort of feellike there's only two choices.
And I think what we're hopingto get into in this series is

(13:37):
that forgiveness is much moreexpansive than that, and there's
a lot of things that we need tosort of myths we need to dispel
.

Katie (13:45):
Yeah, and I like that you pointed back to working this
out as a kid, because I've alsotried to kind of figure out how
this works with my kids.
Obviously there's limitationsthat just come with being really
young, Like I don't know if youguys ever had one of your kids
realize that they could saysorry after they did something
wrong and then they justpurposely keep doing something
wrong and it's like sorry, andthen they kick someone again
sorry, they just say I hadmultiple kids kind of go through

(14:06):
that phase and then it's like,okay, then what are you supposed
to do?
Just say I forgive you everysingle time.
It's sort of it.

Mac (14:12):
Wait till they get older.
My son, my oldest son, justthis week was like you want me
to say sorry, and I know that Idon't feel sorry at all.
So it's like this opposite oflike.
Hey, you know, like in thiscontext where we know we're
supposed to lean intoforgiveness, yeah, I don't
really want to.

Katie (14:30):
I'm out.
What do you do with that?
Let me know what you do withthat, all right, yeah, no, I
think you bring up a really goodpoint, josiah.
I think we have different ideasof what forgiveness is, and our
idea of what forgiveness is isgoing to inform how we are able
to step into it or not able orwilling to step into it, right?
One thing I would sayforgiveness is not is it's not

(14:51):
condoning what happened.
Like imagine someone steps onyour foot and you say like, oh,
it's okay, step on my footanytime you want.
Like that's condoning thebehavior.
Like, yeah, keep doing it, butforgiveness would be saying I
release you from anger andbitterness over what just
happened.
Right, like there's adifference there.
When we forgive, we're notexcusing what happened or

(15:13):
minimizing it, but ratherforgiveness, I think, is a
posture of letting go of theburden of holding onto that
anger and resentment.
Does that make sense to youguys?
What would you add to?

Mac (15:23):
that?
Yeah, it does, and I would evensay that true forgiveness is
the exact opposite of condoningit.
Real forgiveness requiresnaming the full truth of what
happened, without minimizing orexcusing it, and that's what
actually makes it forgiveness.
Otherwise, you're not reallyforgiving anything at all, right
, you're just ignoring it orexcusing it.

(15:44):
And this is what makesforgiveness so powerful, as we
sort of look at the full wrongof what happened and the impact
it had, and then we lean in andwe attend to that relationally
and we release the other person.
So let's just maybe an exampleof what I'm getting at, of how
actually leaning in and namingthe full truth of what happened
is what makes forgiveness so.
Actually leaning in and namingthe full truth of what happened

(16:06):
is what makes forgiveness sopowerful.
Let's say, for example, that oneof my kids throws a ball inside
and it goes right through thefront of my guitar.
Okay, if that guitar doesn'treally matter to me and I'm like
, oh, don't worry, no big deal,right?
Um, I never was really planningon playing it again.
Um, water under the bridge.

(16:26):
Well, I haven't forgiven verymuch, have I?
Yeah, right, but let's say thatguitar means a lot to me and
I'm like you know, I saved a lotof money a long time ago in
order to buy this particularguitar.
That's the guitar I used tosing a song when I proposed to
your mom Did you.

Josiah (16:44):
Yeah, I did.
Oh, wow, yep, I didn't knowthat, yeah.

Mac (16:47):
I wrote a song, sang it to her.

Josiah (16:49):
We would love to hear it on the podcast?
That'd be great.

Mac (16:53):
And I forgive you.
That's much more powerful thanand it didn't really mean much
to me.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, and I'm piggybacking onwhat you're saying to say I
think some people confuseforgiveness for sort of
minimizing the injustice, thewrong, the harm, because that's
what they think forgiveness is.

(17:14):
When I want to say no, it'sactually the exact opposite.
In order to forgive, youactually need to press into the
full wrong that was done andeven the impact that it had.

Josiah (17:23):
Yeah and we have the example of Jesus towards us.
God is fully aware of everysingle thought we have like,
counts the number of hairs onour head, thinks about us all
the time and knows every wrongwe've done and chooses to
forgive.
So forgiveness this idea thatforgiveness is dismissing what

(17:45):
happened really isn't accurateand it doesn't paint a picture
of what true sort oftransformational forgiveness
looks like.

Katie (17:56):
Yeah, I was doing some reading online preparing for
this yesterday and I came acrossthe quote God doesn't condone
sin, he redeems it.
I think that captures whatyou're saying.
Like, if we look at how Godforgives us, I've never
interpreted that as like alicense to keep sinning.
I haven't experienced that.
When I've received hisforgiveness, it feels like I
don't deserve it and it feelslike stepping into something

(18:18):
that's hard and it does feellike redemption.

Mac (18:21):
Yeah, so there's a theological anchor point here,
like God doesn't forgive sin byjust pretending it didn't happen
, like there's a fullacknowledgement of it, and then
we pivot from there.
Okay, let me add another onethat I think forgiveness is not
Okay.
Forgiveness is not forgettingwhat happened.
Sometimes forgiveness andforgetting, I think, get

(18:41):
conflated, but they're not thesame thing.
They're two separate ordistinct things.
Forgiveness involves no longerholding someone else's wrong
actions against them, andsometimes that does lead to
forgetting them.
Right, like, yep, I, I'm notgoing to hold that against you
and in time I forget that ithappened, it's out of my memory,
um.

(19:03):
But forgiveness doesn'tnecessarily mean that you forget
or that your memory is erased,and in fact, in some cases it
might be important not to forget, especially in those cases
where you're still having to bein proximity with that person
and they either haven't admittedthat they're wrong or haven't
attended to the transformationor change required to not hurt
you again.

(19:23):
In those instances it might bereally important not to forget
so that you can maintain properboundaries and sort of protect
yourself from future harm orabuse.
Does that make sense?
Okay, like?
Here's an example, right, likewhen I was a kid, I remember
walking by the oven or the stoveand it was on and I reached up

(19:44):
and touched it and it was like Iburned my hand, like, or like,
real quick, pulled back, ooh,that's hot.
It's good that I didn't forgetthat, because next time I'm
walking by the stove it's like,hey, now I have that memory that
that hurts.
That's what I'm saying.
Is that, like in somerelationships, it might be
important to not forget becausethat hurt.

Katie (20:07):
Right, yeah.
So I hear you saying thatforgetting can actually
perpetuate harm, right, like hadyou forgotten that the oven
burned your hand, you would havedone it over and over and over.
So when we forget, we actuallyopen the door for that harm to
keep occurring.
But when we forgive, we'reacknowledging what happened,
we're facing it and then we'rechoosing to cover it with God's
grace, and there's a differencethere.

Mac (20:28):
Yes, and maybe to just push it a little bit forward, then I
think people resist forgivenessbecause if it means forgetting,
it also means continuing toendure mistreatment or abuse
along the way, and that's notwhat we're saying, right.

Josiah (20:41):
Yeah, I think the problem, like I think one of the
main hangups with the idea offorgetting equating to
forgiveness, is that it's oftenleveraged by the people who have
done the wrong, that the nexttime something comes up and you
bring it up, that person isgoing to be like you forgave me,

(21:02):
so you're not allowed to bringit up again.
You're not allowed to bring itup again.

Mac (21:06):
You're not allowed to bring it up again.
I think what you're saying isthat this idea that forgiveness,
this conflation thatforgiveness is forgetting, can
actually get weaponized by theperson who's done the wrongdoing
to not have to attend tothemselves and sort of change
the way they're relating, movingforward.

Josiah (21:23):
Yes, it is a move out of their own guilt and how they
feel about that, to minimize theanxiety that surrounds having
to face someone that you havewronged.

Katie (21:38):
Yeah, and true forgiveness or attend to a
pattern?
Yeah, you're right.
I think true forgiveness bringsaccountability.

Mac (21:45):
Yeah, let me throw a wrench in this one.
So I read an author this pastyear that challenges this point
we're discussing.
There's a super famoustheologian named Miroslav Volf
and he wrote a very famous bookcalled Exclusion and Embrace and
in it he argues thatforgiveness does involve

(22:09):
forgetting.
And then he builds on thatargument on a book that
addresses this one thing calledthe End of Memory.
Now, to be fair, he's notsaying forgiveness is just
erasing our memories, to denywhat happened and then giving
another person to weaponize thatagainst.
He's not saying that.
He's way smarter than all of usprobably combined.

(22:30):
So but what he anchors it in issort of an eschatological
argument about the new heavensand the new earth.
So he argues that in the newheavens and the new earth, our
memories of sin and wrongdoingwill no longer be needed because
everything will be redeemed.
Doing will no longer be neededbecause everything will be

(22:51):
redeemed.
And he argues that offenseswill be forgotten and that they
will no longer bear the weightof pain, division or resentment.
And that just has me thinking.
I have no idea.
So you're hearing me think outloud.
Theologically, I don't know howto put all that together, but I
think there's something toponder there that maybe this is
the trajectory of the newheavens and the new earth, and
on this side of heaven there isan importance to forgiving if

(23:14):
you're going to continue toexperience hurt or wrong, but
that the end result is like theredemption of all sin and
wrongdoing, and then, therefore,we will be released from the
need to protect ourselvesthrough memory.
Does that make sense?

Josiah (23:26):
Yeah, it's like forgetting to the degree of
which someone is redeemed.
Yes, it's like maybe it'sproportionate that if someone's
fully redeemed in this futurestate fully redeemed, then I
have full confidence in that.

(23:46):
I don't need to protect myselfin any sort of way, and the less
redeemed someone is, the more Ido need to protect myself in
that sense.

Mac (23:56):
Right, because with your example where it's like, hey,
someone did something they justhad done that I just forgiven,
and now they're like, hey, youcan't bring that up because you
already forgave me, right?
Well, it would also be as acounter example.
It would also be unfortunate ifsomething happened in the past.
It had been forgiven and Ihaven't done it since, and that
person keeps bringing it upagain and again and it's like

(24:18):
well, time out, and I've neverrepeated that action.
Does that make sense?
So it gets complicated.
But for the sake of ourconversation, we've named two so
far.
Forgiveness is not condoningwhat happened.
That's not what forgiveness isabout.
And forgiveness is notnecessarily forgetting what
happened, especially if you'restill in proximity to someone

(24:39):
who's repeating that wrongdoing.
Yeah, yeah.

Josiah (24:43):
A third one I would name is forgiveness is not just a
one-time event, nor does ithappen in an instant.
Forgiveness is a continualprocess that requires you to
choose over and over.
Anyone who has had to practiceforgiving someone from a

(25:04):
significant hurt that's caused alot of damage, you'll know that
saying it and choosing it onetime at the beginning is not the
end result.
It is something you have tocontinually choose to do.
I can think of scenarios whereyou have to forgive someone who
won't admit to wronging you inthe first place.

(25:25):
And choosing to forgive at thebeginning is great, but it must
be chosen over and over againbecause it's going to come up
over and over again.
I think it also exposes if thehang-up is like not wanting to
forgive is because your conceptis that when I forgive once it's

(25:48):
done.
I think it also it sort ofexposes another question, or
maybe a common hangup peoplehave is like did I actually
forgive someone if I still havestrong feelings about it?

Mac (26:00):
I encounter that one as a pastor quite a bit that I've
preached on forgiveness.
It comes up as a theme whenyou're preaching, quite a bit
right, Because of how central itis to the gospel.
And I've had people over theyears come up and as they share
hey, I'm really struggling toforgive.
So-and-so.
I've actually numerous timesdiscerned no, it's not that

(26:23):
you're not forgiving this person, it's just that you're still
experiencing the pain of whathappened to you.
And now you've got this voiceon your shoulder like, hey, an
experience in that pain is wrong.
You know what I mean.
And being equated with a lack offorgiveness rather than going,
no, what happened to me stillhurts.
And every time I'm reminded ofthat hurt or that pain, that's

(26:45):
an invitation to once again,instead of returning back to
bitterness or resentment orunforgiveness, to maintain this
attitude of forgiveness towardsthis other person.
Martin Luther King Jr once saidforgiveness is not an
occasional act, it's a permanentattitude.
In other words, when someonehas wronged you that doesn't

(27:07):
just stay there.
It's likely that you're goingto continue to experience the
pain of that through triggers orwhatever, and when those
triggers happen, it's importantto be reminded hey, this is a
process and I can either gobackwards or continue to
maintain my forward momentum bymaintaining this attitude or
posture of forgiveness.
By maintaining this attitude orposture of forgiveness, Am I

(27:29):
going to pick up this offensethat I put down because I was
reminded of it, or am I going tostay in this place of releasing
and forgiving it Does?

Katie (27:36):
that make sense?
It does, yeah, and I guess onething that sticks out to me is
that throughout thisconversation, we keep pointing
back to God and God'sforgiveness and how we receive
His forgiveness, and we want toextend that to others.
And we're back to God and God'sforgiveness and how we receive
his forgiveness and we want toextend that to others, and we're
going to continue to do that.
I think what we're also sayingis that we as humans like we're
not God we're actually living inthis human experience.

(27:58):
We're living in human bodies,and so I could imagine someone
saying, well, doesn't Godforgive us in an instant?
And then forget, but similar toyour last point about we're
living on this side of heaven,right, so we are dealing with
human bodies that experiencepain and have to process it and
process all the emotions with it.
So I guess that's just that's apoint I would make is, as we

(28:21):
look at God and go well, whycan't I do what God does?
We have to realize how ourhuman experience impacts.
That.

Josiah (28:26):
Is that making sense does we have to realize how our
human experience impacts.
That.
Is that making sense?
Yeah, and it's also probablywhat God has to do.
I mean, god, we don't stopmaking mistakes.
You know, we don't like.
I think that God, I wouldimagine God has to continually
choose to forgive us, like, ifyou think about it, if our
redemption is something that'spast, present and future, that

(28:48):
means he's continually forgivingus all the time.

Mac (28:51):
Yes, that is true, I also think in sort of evangelical
circles where the gospel wassort of reduced to hey, you've
done wrong, that's sin, you'reseparated from God.
God sent Jesus, like.
We're familiar with thispresentation.
There's nothing wrong with that, it's just part of it.
So far in our conversationwe've equated sin with

(29:13):
individual wrongdoing I'vecommitted an action that's not
okay, and so on.
But in scripture, sin isn't justmoral misbehavior, it's
actually a power, it's a forcethat holds us captive.
And so, when we think aboutGod's forgiveness, what did

(29:37):
Jesus do on the cross?
It wasn't just hey, I'mforgiving you for the individual
wrongdoing you did.
It was actually breaking thepower of sin that holds us
captive entirely.
It was a rescue mission.
And so part of the forgivenessthat we are called to embody and
again, I hope we get into thisin future episodes is not just
forgiving individual wrongdoings, but it's part of dethroning
the power of sin that holdshumanity captive in and of

(29:59):
itself.
In other words, god doesn'tjust forgive the wrongdoing, he
actually sets you free from thething that led you to do the
wrongdoing.
Yeah, which is amazing.
Yeah, yeah, anyway, tangentover.

Katie (30:12):
That is Well.
It makes me think of no, it's areally good point.
It makes me think of my nextpoint, which is that forgiveness
is not a sign of weakness.
I think we can sometimes thinkthat to forgive is to take the
weak road.
I don't know, but when I thinkabout what Jesus did on the
cross, that is like the furthestthing from weakness in my mind,

(30:32):
like when he's on the cross andhe says, father, forgive them,
for they know not what we do.
Do I hear that and go like, oh,how weak.
No, Like I think of that as oneof the most like courageous
things I can imagine, likethat's kind of a picture of
divine strength.
So I want to challenge theassumption that forgiveness is
weak.
I think holding on to feelingsof bitterness and resentment or

(30:54):
anger is actually the easierthing, because that feels safe
to us.
I think it's much, much harderto let those go.
And when I think about times inmy own life that I've had to
forgive someone it certainly wasnot easy, it was not weak.
When I have made, maybe, thechoice not to forgive, that's
the easy road.
Forgiving was the hard thing.

Mac (31:13):
Totally.
I've shared this before on thepodcast.
So a little bleep warning, butmy sister is a therapist and
when she's working with clientswho have experienced a great
wrong that they're in process oftrying to forgive, she often
tells them that forgiveness isway more badass than bitterness
and it is.

(31:33):
I so believe that I know onewoman who, about 10 years into
her marriage, discovered herhusband was having an affair and
as the details came out, itbecame evident that this wasn't
just a one-time incident or justwith one person, but this was a
pattern throughout the historyof their relationship multiple

(31:53):
women and this woman in thismarriage was a Christian.
So, without minimizing thebetrayal and the hurt and the
pain and all of that, the two ofthem went on this journey of
forgiveness and reconciliationand it looked totally different
for them.
One had to attend to sort of asexual addiction and she had to
sort of deal with all the angerand the betrayal and all of the

(32:16):
emotions that come with that.
But, my goodness, they did thehard work.
It took several years and theyended up reconciling and they're
still together, which isamazing, and their marriage is
better than ever before.
But, man, when I think about astory like that.
Can you imagine your spousethat kind of betrayal, that
patterned betrayal?

(32:37):
It'd be so easy to just divorcethe other person, to spend the
rest of your life sort oftrapped in bitterness and
resentment and so on, ratherthan doing the hard work.
And maybe you know, it dependsSome people, the fact that both
of them were willing to attend,that both had to do the work.
There might be times wherethat's not possible, right?

(32:57):
But the point is, is that likewow, that's badass.
You know, thomas Aquinas said.
He's a famous theologian.
He said to part in an offenseis the mark of a virtuous person
, for it belongs to the one whois strong in character to pass
over injury.
So it's not weakness, ifanything.

(33:19):
Holding onto bitterness andresentment is a sign of weakness
, a deficiency in character.
I wonder, like, what it unlocksto think about forgiveness as
strength, like I wonder what itunlocks to go okay, like I'm
motivated by doing the hardright thing, and this is the
hard right thing, you know.

(33:40):
So forgiveness, you said Katie,is not a sign of weakness.
I think that's powerful.
Another one is that forgivenessis not contingent on the other
person.
So this is another one I'veencountered a lot.
Some people think that, hey, Ican't forgive the other person
because they haven't said thatthey're sorry, like the other

(34:00):
person has to issue an apologyin order for me to forgive.
But see, the other person maynever issue an apology for the
wrong that they've done.
They might deny that they evendid something wrong.
They may know that they didsomething wrong and not even
care.
I know some people, as a pastor,who they're struggling to

(34:22):
forgive someone who's no longereven alive.
So what do you do in thatinstance, right?
So I want to say thatforgiveness doesn't hang on the
other person at all.
Reconciliation does thatrequires both people, but
forgiveness really just startswith you.
You can forgive another personno matter what the other person
does, and in that sense,forgiveness even when the other

(34:44):
person doesn't apologize or owntheir crap sets you free, right.
When you refuse to, when theother person doesn't apologize
or own their crap sets you free.
When you refuse to forgive theother person, thinking like, oh,
it's contingent upon them,you're sort of being held
captive.
To forgive somebody is to sayone way or another, you're not
going to destroy me.

Josiah (35:04):
You're not going to still hold me captive.
Yeah, I think that we have toreverse the power dynamic.
In our mind we think holding itagainst them gives us power,
but I think forgiving before theother person apologizes
actually does a work ofdisarming the other person.
Yes, that you're building upyour defenses by building all

(35:26):
these barriers and coming upwith all these reasons why
you'll never forgive them andyou hate them and all these
things and you feel like youbuild this wall of defense
against them.
But all that does is perpetuatefighting and incivility and
stuff like that.
So I think that linking it tothe last point is we have to

(35:46):
shift our paradigm, we have toflip it around, just as we have
to realize forgiveness is notweakness, it's actually strength
, when we can leverageforgiveness in a way that
actually can disarm the otherperson and de-escalate
situations.

Mac (36:00):
Yeah, dude, like there's that old saying I don't even
know who it's accredited to butlike refusing to forgive is like
drinking poison, hoping theother person gets sick.
Yeah, and the truth is andthere's so many studies around
this that when we refuse toforgive, it actually negatively
impacts us.
It can negatively impact usphysically, emotionally, in a

(36:21):
real sense, refusing to forgiveis detrimental to our own health
.
There's a famous theologian,william Barclay.
He once said to forgive is tofling open the door of the
prisoner and to discover thatthe prisoner was you.
So I really like that idea oflike no, you're actually
flipping things by restoringyour agency.

(36:42):
You know what I mean.
Yeah.

Katie (36:45):
Yeah, I've heard an analogy in the same vein, that
holding onto a grudge is likehaving a chain that ties you to
the other person.
But forgiveness is likebreaking that chain.
It's an act of reclaiming yourjoy and your peace.

Josiah (36:57):
Yeah, I like what you said about the autonomy piece or
agency Sorry, that was the wordyou used.
Forgiveness is reclaiming yourown agency.
Forgiveness is reclaiming yourown agency rather than being
your piece, being contingent onwhat the other person chooses.
I choose something and I havethat agency, and not only is

(37:17):
that helping free me, but italso executes like a real
spiritual power of forgiving theother person and initiating
other processes that are soimportant.

Mac (37:30):
Dude, you're on it.
There's something I don't likewhen people say, hey,
forgiveness is just for me,right, they're trying to correct
this thing that way.
No, forgiveness is for you,you're setting yourself free too
, but it also is setting theother person free.
You're both being set free.
I was talking to your mom,katie, recently about

(37:54):
forgiveness and she told me astory that kind of captivated my
attention.
It dovetails on what you'resaying, josiah, about, like hey,
there's something, a spiritualdynamic to this freedom.
She was working with a clientwho was struggling with
forgiveness or didn't want toforgive, and, if I remember
correctly, the substance of itwas they prayed forgiveness and

(38:17):
this other person that they werepraying forgiveness over was
refusing to acknowledge and doall this stuff.
Point is, right after that,like within a couple hours after
they got done praying, thatother person who had this
unresolved called and apologized.

Katie (38:32):
Yeah, she told me that story.
Yeah, it's.

Mac (38:34):
Almost like hold up Holy smokes, Like something was on.
It seems like something wasunlocked there in the spiritual
realm, so like when we refuse toforgive.
I don't know this for sure, butwhen we refuse to forgive,
we're holding ourselves captiveand them.
And when we release, when weforgive, it not only frees us,
but perhaps something ishappening in the spiritual realm
that also frees them.

Josiah (38:55):
Yeah, and that's the picture of God's love and his
nature.
Like we didn't love him first,While we were still sinners.
Christ died for us this conceptthat God loves us fully and
intimately well before we haveany chance to choose it for
ourselves.
So we can demonstrate that lovetowards other people by

(39:15):
choosing to forgive, regardlessof how they respond to it.
Yep, yeah, all right.
Another one is forgiveness isnot rescuing the other person
from their consequences.
Yeah, a common misconception.
Trusting the other person whohas wronged you is not a

(39:39):
prerequisite for forgiving them.
So forgiving someone doesn'tmean that all of the work for
repairing the relationships hasbeen done, and separating those
two from not being synonymouswith each other is really
important.

(40:00):
Often, the hangup we have is inorder for me to forgive them, I
feel like I have to trust themto be close to me again.
I can't have any defenses up, Ican't take steps to do all of
these things.
And in reality, it does twothings.

(40:20):
One is it keeps us from feelinglike I can let go and still
have healthy boundaries.
I can let go and still havehealthy boundaries.
The other thing that it does isit has the it can often have
the work of if you is trying tosweep it under the rug.
I know a church that wentthrough a scenario in which one

(40:42):
of the pastors had sort ofsexually harassed someone who
was like a volunteer, sexuallyharassed someone who was like a
volunteer.
And when this person cameforward and mentioned it, it got
dealt with right away in thesense that it was addressed and
then it was talked about and insome ways, like it was, it was,

(41:02):
it was good.
But then once the forgivenesswas supposed to be issued,
essentially it was just requiredthat everyone just move on with
their lives and there wereconsequences done for this
pastor, but the hurt wasn'tattended to and they ended up

(41:28):
getting reinstated and they werestill then serving and they
were asked to just go to churchwith this person who had wronged
them.
Quite significantly, there wastrust broken, major trust broken
.
But when this person tried tosay, no, I don't feel
comfortable with that, or neededmore time to heal, no, I don't
feel comfortable with that, orneeded more time to heal,

(41:48):
essentially they were sort offorced into this like, well, you
know, like you have a problemwith unforgiveness, you need to
let it go.
Wow, and the issue this personwas taking and I think maybe
people listening could relate tothis it's not that they weren't
willing to forgive, it was, itseems, like the consequences for
this person's actions.

(42:09):
The natural consequences weresort of protected from them.
They were protected from thethings that they needed to do to
repair.
That would have been necessaryto rebuild trust, not only for
this person but for, like, theentire leadership team.

Mac (42:25):
Yeah, you just used a word that I think I'd want to double
click on.
You said natural consequences.
I would often use a wordintrinsic consequences, because
sometimes we think of the way wethink about consequences matter
In our context, in our culture.
We often, especially inparenting, we think, oh, there's
extrinsic consequences we usewhich is not related to the

(42:48):
behavior at all.
So like punishment punishmentright Like I grew up and in my
home I got spanked if I didsomething wrong.
Okay, but getting spanked in noway connected to the behavior
itself.
It was like just theconsequence for doing something
you weren't supposed to do.
That's very different than aconsequence that's intrinsic to

(43:10):
the behavior itself.
And when we say forgiveness isnot rescuing the other person
from consequences that's what Ihave in mind is intrinsic
consequences.
So, for instance, let's say oneof my kid tells a lie and then
gets caught in that lie and weattend to that together and I
say I forgive you, there's stillan intrinsic reality to that

(43:33):
misbehavior, even though I'mforgiving the wrong you're doing
.
Well, lying erodes trust and Ican't rescue you from the fact
that, like now, some trust hasbeen eroded that needs to be
regained.
Maybe another example would be.
As a pastor, I've counseledpeople of broken marriages and

(43:54):
if a couple, for instance,breaks up because one of them
was unfaithful, right, and theyhave an affair and then end up
with that other person, and thatends up throwing the whole
family dynamic off.
Now you're doing parentingrhythms and all this stuff right
.
There's a sense in which timeout there's no way I can free
you from the fact that now youcan't be together as a family

(44:14):
all the time.
We can forgive the offense, Ican forgive that the affair
happened, for instance but Ican't take away the fact that,
like that fundamentally alteredlife as it is, it's built into
the wrongdoing itself does thatmake sense if people are honest?

Josiah (44:31):
I think that it.
It erodes trust, even withinthe new relationship it was the
whole premise of therelationship was built on lies
and deception.
So now you have to learn how toretrust someone else and then
you know it can get leveragedagainst you if you don't trust
them on the other side.

Mac (44:53):
Right.
So I think that's important.
Sometimes we think forgivenessis like hey, we're just going to
like wipe the slate clean as ifit didn't happen, when in
actuality, what happened mightstill have some consequences
that carry into the future, andforgiveness isn't saying that
those consequences that carryinto the future, the intrinsic
consequences, are somehownegated or or shouldn't happen.

Katie (45:15):
yes, right yeah, and another one.
I guess maybe the last one Iwould name is that forgiveness
is also not the same thing asreconciliation.
Mac, you mentioned this earlier, but forgiveness and
reconciliation are different.
I think they're different insome really significant ways.
I see forgiveness as kind of aone-way street, like forgiveness
is something that I can do.

(45:36):
Reconciliation is somethingthat really takes both parties
to step into, like the exampleyou shared of the couple and
there was an affair and theyboth stepped into it, wanting to
pursue reconciliation.
I saw one quote that saidimagine forgiveness is like
opening the door of your heartand letting bitterness leave.
Reconciliation is invitingsomeone back in.

(45:58):
One can happen without theother.
We can open the door of ourheart and let the bitterness and
resentment go without actuallyinviting the person back in, and
I think that's just animportant point, that it
requires both people toacknowledge the harm and work
towards reconciling trust.
This will likely includesetting boundaries and
accountability.
All of that is necessary toreconcile because reconciliation

(46:21):
requires trust, and trust issomething that takes time to
rebuild.
So, if you're sitting therethinking well, if I've forgiven,
why doesn't our relationshiplook the same?
Or why do I still feel the painof this person?
If maybe they're continuing towrong me, but have I not
forgiven them, why do I keepfeeling pain around it?
Well, there might be more workthat has to be done in order to

(46:42):
truly reconcile thatrelationship, and that's going
to really depend on how theperson that hurt you is is
responding and takingresponsibility and truly
changing right Like are theytruly demonstrating a commitment
to change?
Are they redeemed?
To draw back to an earlierconcept we talked about Big
picture.

Mac (47:01):
I totally agree that forgiveness is not the same as
reconciliation and, kind ofgoing back to the language of
agency, forgiveness is you haveagency.
Reconciliation requires bothpeople exercising agency.
You said something, katie, thatI'm not entirely sure about and
I would love to open it up justto go.

(47:22):
Huh, I wonder about that.
You said reconciliationinvolves trust, and that just
makes me curious.
Yes, I guess I see, and we'llget into this more in future
episodes and feel free todisagree with me but I see
reconciliation as two peoplesaying I've done a wrong or been

(47:43):
the recipient of a wrong andI'm going to own that.
Like two people coming togetherand apologizing where
apologizing is needed andextending forgiveness.
That's reconciliation.
But trust is about then movingforward in relationship with
someone else.

Katie (48:01):
Yeah so maybe there's a distinction between
reconciliation and repair.
Maybe repair is another levelthat can be a step beyond
reconciliation.
I hear what you're saying.
Yeah, I wouldn't disagree withthat.
Like if you can't if the person, if you can't really, if you
don't have reason to trust theperson again, you can still
reconcile.
Yeah, I think that's fair.

Mac (48:21):
Okay, that's what I was kind of getting at is to go okay
, but I can think of some peoplein my life I'd be, I'm not
reconciled with, I'd like to be.
It requires both of us leaningin with agency.
That other person may not beready for that or whatever.
But I have no interest intrying to rebuild trust with
that person long-term kind ofdoing that repair work.

(48:42):
I'm interested inreconciliation.
We're right, we're no longerholding that against each other
and we're moving on.
We're rightly related now.
But that doesn't necessarilyinvolve, it doesn't necessitate
repair, rebuilding trust andkind of getting back in
proximity with each other.

Katie (48:57):
Yeah, I think that's fair .

Josiah (48:58):
Yeah, like forgiveness, our trust becomes like a.
It sort of is produced with theprocess of reconciliation and
over time and commitment, it'ssomething that's built.

Katie (49:10):
And I think Mac's saying maybe it is, maybe it isn't
right.

Josiah (49:13):
Yeah, there's another choice.

Mac (49:14):
Maybe it doesn't get there.
Yeah, yeah, it's almost like Iimagine these steps and we'll
get into this in future episodes.
But there's like forgivenesswhich is on you.
There's, reconciliationrequires both of you.
And then, after reconciliation,there's like this question of
and how much is there going tobe a continued relationship,
which would require trust, andtrust is restored through

(49:34):
consistent behavior over time.
Let me summarize, because we'venamed hey a lot of people.
Josiah, you started by sayinghey.
I think some people resistforgiveness because they confuse
forgiveness with something thatit's not, and we've spent some
time naming what some of thosecommon misconceptions are, so

(49:54):
let me review them.
Forgiveness is not condoningwhat happened.
Forgiveness is not forgettingwhat happened.
It's not a one-time event, nordoes it happen in an instant.
Forgiveness is not a sign ofweakness, actually the opposite.
Forgiveness is not contingenton the other person.
It's not rescuing the otherperson from intrinsic or natural

(50:18):
consequences.
And then, lastly, it shouldn'tbe confused with reconciliation.
Those two aren't the same.
And then, lastly, it shouldn'tbe confused with reconciliation.

Josiah (50:26):
Those two aren't the same.
That capture it.
Yeah.
Yeah, I like that list.
It's really extensive.
So we've named what it isn't,which is important.
I think of the passage in is it1 Corinthians, the love,
chapter 13.
Yes, where Paul names all love,the love, chapter 13.
Yes, um, where, uh, paul namesall the things that that love

(50:48):
isn't?
Yes, but he also names what itis, yeah, and so, um, I think of
it this way, like, hey, we'renaming everything for
forgiveness isn't.
So let's take some time, let'sidentify what it is and then
come up with a definition.

Mac (51:02):
Um, yeah, I'll tell you, I was trying to put together a
definition.
It was a little tricky, and thereason why is because I don't
think there's just onedefinition that everyone agrees
on.
That doesn't exist.
So what I did was I pulled somequotes from some famous
theologians people who are waysmarter than I am and I've got

(51:23):
four of them and I just want toread them and see what it
provokes for the two of you.
What do you like?
What don't you like?
Whatever, I have no idea whatit will provoke for you.
Just kind of, hey, this is whatthat stirs up in me.
Okay, so four of them, and thenI'm going to supply a
definition at the end.
Okay, my best attempt Okay,first quote by Dallas Willard to

(51:43):
D Willie forgiveness is lettingthe other person off the hook.
What do you think?

Katie (51:52):
I mean, I think, yeah, I think there's a sense in which
that's true.
I have a really hard timedisagreeing with Dallas Willard.
Can I just say that I don't.
I feel no way, in no wayequipped, careful, but, um, I
also feel like we just said alot of things in the past 45
minutes to an hour that fillthat out, that it's not entirely
letting the person off the hook.
There's a lot more involved inthat.

Josiah (52:14):
Yeah, I mean, it's a punchy statement and it's
thought-provoking.
I would imagine that if he wassitting here he wouldn't say
that that is the complete,expanded view of what
forgiveness is.
He's trying to reduce it downin a punchy, thought-provoking
statement, so I yeah, yeah.

Mac (52:33):
So maybe the weakness I hear from you guys is it could
carry or be interpreted as asweep, like kind of that magic
wand thing.
Yes, that we started saying.
And yeah, dallas Willard issmarter than all of us, so I
imagine he is more.
It's more nuanced than that.
Yeah, Right, okay.
Got it.
It is hard to disagree with DWillie.

(52:53):
Here's another one, anotherbeloved theologian and
commentator, and T right.
Why don't we hear from him?
He said forgiveness is lookingat the truth of the hurt and
pain, not pretending it didn'thappen or it didn't matter and
not letting it determine thefuture.

(53:14):
What does that provoke for you?

Katie (53:21):
I like the idea of looking at the truth of the hurt
and pain.
Right, we talked about howoftentimes we can think
forgiveness is minimizing orcondoning.
But God tells the full truthabout us, no matter how messy
and ugly it is, and I thinkthat's really important.
I think it's really importantto look at the truth of the hurt
and pain when he says it's notletting it determine the future.
Again, I think we filled thatout by going well sometimes

(53:43):
determine the future Again, Ithink we filled that out by
going well sometimes.
Sometimes we have to determinehow we move forward based on
where the other person's at howdeep the wound was.
Are they making commitments tochange?
I think there's a whole lotthat would fill out that last
piece for me.

Josiah (53:56):
Yeah, I like that.
It's open-ended.
Um, I like that.
The you know, you're, you're.
He's essentially saying that,um, if I look at the opposite of
what he's saying, if I amletting it determine my future,
I have made a preset judgmentthat what this person did to
wrong me equals this andforgiveness opens the door to

(54:20):
changing that future.
Rather than me judging what'sgoing to happen, yeah, that's a
good point.

Mac (54:27):
Yeah, I think that last phrase requires some filling out
.
It doesn't have to determinethe future.
That could be conflated orconfused with oh, then we're
just moving on and it didn'thappen, and again what we've
talked about for the last 45minutes or so would say no,
that's not actually it.

(54:48):
But I don't think that's whathe's saying.
I think he's saying it doesn'thave to be the determining thing
for the future.
It's now open to newpossibilities, right?
Yeah.
All right, two more, two more.
This one's by Tim Keller, Kindof jumping into the reformed
circle for a moment.
He said forgiveness is a formof voluntary suffering in which

(55:20):
you absorb the debt someone elseowes you and release them from
liability to pay.

Katie (55:21):
What do you guys think?
Forgiveness is a form ofvoluntary suffering.
I agree with that.
It certainly does feel likesuffering that you're choosing
to take on, but, man, it kind offeels like you suffer.
Either way, whether you'rechoosing to forgive or not
forgive, there's going to besome suffering.
So, in a way, choose your path.
Pick your pain.

(55:42):
Pick your pain.
Either you do choose to absorbthe debt someone else owes you
um, or you choose to suffer byhanging on to bitterness and
resentment, which I would say iseven worse, A lot worse.

Josiah (55:55):
Yeah, Absorbing the debt .
I think, uh, you, they, theyonly are problematic.
If you feel like, um, you're uh, believing some of the, the
false definitions of it, youknow what I mean.
Like if I, like I could pickany of them, like, uh, you know,

(56:18):
I'm absorbing the debt in mymind.
I'm like, well, does that meanlike they don't have
consequences for their actions?
Right, so, like I.
I'm like, well, does that meanlike they don't have
consequences for their actions?
Right, so like I.
I feel like I can, you can takesome and be like, oh, I'll try
to poke a hole.
Or like, if I'm, if I havebaggage from, from not not being
able to forgive in a certainway, um, it can be difficult to
read, but I uh, yeah, yeah, Idon't know how I feel about this

(56:40):
one.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't know how I feel aboutthis one.

Mac (56:43):
I do like the suffering piece.
I think that okay, in Jesusforgiving us went to the cross,
so there's some cruciformity toforgiveness You're bearing the
burden of someone else'swrongdoing.
I like the debt language to adegree.
Sometimes I think we have atendency to spiritualize or

(57:05):
moralize some of the teachingsof Jesus and sort of miss out on
the practicality.
So when we talk about debts weimmediately go to like a moral
offense, a wrongdoing, something.
But like in the first century,it might have just actually been
a debt.
Like, oh, someone owes yousomething and you're releasing
them of that.
Like kind of just like theparable I started with.

(57:25):
It wasn't there's a tangiblesort of monetary piece to it,
but again, like from releasingthem from the liability of pay
could be mistaken or confusedwith releasing them from any
impact on the future.
Yeah, just like the NT Wrightone.
All right, one more.
This is from Karl Barth, againfamous theologian.

(57:48):
He said forgiveness is not thedenial of wrongdoing but the
radical affirmation that,through God's grace, wrongdoing
does not have the last word.

Josiah (57:59):
I like that one.
It's less expansive, but I feelgood about that one.

Katie (58:07):
Yeah, I like the phrase wrongdoing doesn't have the last
word, because to me that soundslike the gospel.

Mac (58:16):
Let me take a stab at a definition.
Obviously, it's not going to beperfect.

Katie (58:23):
To add yourself to the list of famous theologians.
I had to quote by howpresumptuous.

Mac (58:29):
No, this is just me trying to gather up, like the best of
all the nuance we've discussedand even these definitions.
So forgiveness is theintentional process of choosing
to no longer count anotherperson's sin or wrongdoing
against them.
It's the cancellation of a debtowed without the need for
payment, to open up the door tothe possibility of

(58:52):
reconciliation.
So maybe to slow it down orbreak it apart a little bit,
here's some of the keycomponents I would want to
highlight of my own definition.
It's a choice.
It doesn't just happen, youhave to choose it.
It's a process.
It's something that you mighthave to choose, not just once,
but repeatedly.
It is acknowledging thewrongdoing.

(59:12):
You're not sweeping it underthe rug.
You're acknowledging the fulltruth of what happened, but then
there is a cancellation of thedebt.
Mercy gets the last word ratherthan wrongdoing.
It's not exacting vengeance.
You'll notice that.
It's releasing bitterness andresentment, and it's not
required that reconciliation isgoing to result.

(59:36):
It just opens up thepossibility for it, because that
would require the other person.
So what do you think?
What would you add?
What would you disagree with?
What would you emphasize?
Where do you want to humble me?

Josiah (59:51):
I, yeah, I like it.

Mac (59:54):
Adam, I mean, feel free to get a jab in here.

Katie (59:58):
It's similar to the Karl Barth quote.
I love how you said mercy getsthe last word because, again, I
think we mess up and commitwrongdoing against God every
single day and that's what Godtells us.
Like he looks at us and saysI'm choosing to let my mercy
have the final word, and sowe're choosing in that to
receive what God has offered usand then extending that towards

(01:00:20):
others and this is how thegospel think spreads right Like
we can.
When I think about sharing thegospel or evangelizing like when
, when I truly step intoforgiving someone and allowing
mercy to have the final word, Ithink that's how we share the
love of Jesus around us.
So I think that's just a reallypowerful picture.

Josiah (01:00:38):
Yeah, I, I think it's good.
I um, you know, I think of.
I think when I read this andafter all of our talking, I
think it's good.
I think of when I read this andafter all of our talking, I
think of the concept of judgment.
Jesus invites us to judge, notlest you be judged right.
The measure you're judgingothers is what's used to judge
you, and I don't know when youline that up with forgiveness.

(01:01:02):
Is forgiveness protecting awrongdoer from consequences?
No, Does it mean that theydon't have to repair?
No, but I am willing to let goof my judgment of the other
person and holding thewrongdoing against them could be

(01:01:23):
equated with judging by sayingI've written you off, Like
there's no hope for you.
You will not change, andforgiveness says I believe they
could.

Mac (01:01:36):
Ah, so there's like a hopeful forgiveness is hopeful.

Josiah (01:01:38):
Yeah, it restores this hope in that I can see the
intrinsic value of this personas an image bearer, even in the
face of everything they've donewrong.
I am not going to judge theirultimate outcome based on this
wrongdoing they have done, andI'm choosing to say that I think

(01:02:04):
they could change and I hopethat for them.

Mac (01:02:11):
Yeah, dude, and and part of my definition was borrowing or
inspired from second Corinthiansfive that whole idea not
counting uh wrongdoing againstthem, like this is what God does
for us and that invites us tobe ministers or uh, ambassadors
of reconciliation ourselves.
Invites us to be ministers orambassadors of reconciliation
ourselves.
This is the hope of the gospel.
There's a redemptive arc thatwe're invited to embody with our

(01:02:32):
lives.
To go no, forgiveness is theembodiment of our hope that our
wrongdoing doesn't get the lastword, that the telos.
The end is beautiful, it'sredemption, it's wholeness, it's
shalom.
You know I love it.
This series.
We're going to continue tobuild this out.
We have more to say about howwe get stuck, you know, in

(01:03:00):
unforgiveness, and then we'regoing to spend a lot of time
walking through some of theprimary components or steps that
forgiveness involves.
So if you're listening to this,just know we're kind of at
square one and we've got a lotto build out in this series that
we hope you'll be able to joinus with.
But let's transition, before wedepart, to practice time.
In light of our conversation,guys, what would you and gals?

(01:03:23):
In light of our conversation,guys, what would you and gals,
what would you say here'ssomething someone could do to
actually embody or practiceforgiveness in the way of Jesus.

Katie (01:03:33):
We had my mom in here a couple episodes ago and she
talked about the importance ofjournaling.

Mac (01:03:38):
Moleskine.

Katie (01:03:39):
Yep getting the moleskine if you're fancy.

Josiah (01:03:42):
Hold on.
It's pronounced moleskine what.

Adam (01:03:46):
No, I remember.
I don't know how true this is,but I remember back when they
were kind of a new thing, I hadheard that the CEO, or whoever
created the name intentionally,didn't want to give a proper
pronunciation and just leavepeople with their own

(01:04:06):
interpretation of it.

Katie (01:04:07):
It sounds like an Enneagram four.
Yeah, no one's going to knowhow to say this.
It is that unique.

Mac (01:04:13):
Everybody gets to embody uniqueness.

Josiah (01:04:17):
Yeah, and they'll all be wrong, no matter what they say
Okay, back to journaling.

Katie (01:04:25):
Yeah, I used to journal a lot.
I think that kind of fell offwhen I had kids.
I still do a little bit, butnot nearly as much.
But I think I would say,journaling about a time that you
experienced deep forgiveness,especially on the receiving end,
I think can be really powerful.
When we had my mom on thepodcast she talked about how
journaling helps, like, processemotions and it can help you

(01:04:47):
kind of go back to thatexperience and remember what it
felt like.
And so if you take some timejust to journal to think back,
reflect and maybe journal abouta time that you were a recipient
of forgiveness, there's suchpower in that I think it can
help remember what it felt like.
It can help us remember what itfelt like to receive grace and

(01:05:08):
to mercy, to have a debt coveredand the freedom that came from
that to be able to move forward.
And so I think when we rememberreceiving that and feeling all
those emotions, it can equip usand give us imagination for
extending that to other peopleand not only like, okay, I guess
I can do this now, but in someways it can actually, I think,

(01:05:28):
sometimes make us excited toextend that freedom to someone
else because we remember howpowerful it was to be on the
receiving end of that.
So I would say, yeah, I thinkjournaling can be really helpful
here.

Mac (01:05:40):
My brother-in-law got me a journal for Christmas this year.

Katie (01:05:44):
Was it a Moleskine?
It was not a Moleskine.

Mac (01:05:46):
Or a Moleskine.
It was Moleskine-like, likekind of hardcover, same kind of
concept, and it came with like asuper duper fancy pen.
So I can't remember the brand,but Nice yeah.

Katie (01:05:58):
Well, I got my brother-in-law a Moleskine.

Mac (01:06:01):
Oh nice.

Josiah (01:06:06):
So hopefully he's listening.
I think it's moleskine, I thinkthat's how you say it.
Got it.
I'm just going to correcteverybody who says it no matter
what, that won't be obnoxious atall.
No, I like that.
I think that you have to getacquainted with your story and a
deeper understanding of that isreally important.
Another practice is to simplyjust identify someone in your

(01:06:27):
life that you struggle toforgive.
Um, and I would encourage you,don't go too far down the road.
I mean, if you're, if you'refollowing along with the series,
um, we're going to get a lotmore into the nitty gritty of
what forgiveness can look likeand trying to paint a picture
and some steps.

(01:06:49):
Um, but just identify maybe oneperson or maybe there's multiple
people that, like I, struggleto forgive or to know if I
forgive in or how much to godown the road and identify and
then talk about it, or maybe youadd it to journaling practice.
This might be easy to identifyfor the big ones, but I was
thinking about this and I thinkthat's often better for us to
start with really smaller hurtsand pains from people where

(01:07:13):
there's already built inrelational safety.
Starting with reps from smallerthings can help us try to get
our bearings for what it lookslike and it sort of builds this
momentum when you feel that therelease from being able to
forgive someone from somethingsmall and you sense we've sort

(01:07:33):
of cleared the air and I'm notholding on to it anymore.
It can sort of give us amomentum and a vision for what
it could look like to do it formaybe the bigger hurts in our
lives.

Mac (01:07:42):
Yeah, I like that, like to do it for maybe the bigger hurts
in our lives, yeah, I like that.
Maybe if you have a biggerperson that you're like I don't
know if I've forgiven them orI'm struggling to note that and
maybe hold that out as wejourney through this series
because we're going to give yousome action steps as we progress
, but I like what you're sayingis like what helps us attend to
the bigger ones is to buildconfidence with the smaller ones
.
So final one is, I would saylearn from others.

(01:08:05):
Friends become acquainted witha story of forgiveness and
action, and this could be withsomeone you know.
You just saw them maybe endurea big hurt or wrong and then
they move to forgiveness and youget really familiar with their
story as a way of inspiration.
Of course, there's also somereally famous stories of
forgiveness and I was actuallythinking we should feature we

(01:08:29):
should maybe do a feature storyin future episodes of like a
really, you know, like a RubyBridges or Corrie Ten Boom or
like.
So maybe we can note that.
Like let's do a feature story offorgiveness in our future
series, just to go.
And here's what we're talkingabout.
Like this is why it's powerful.

Katie (01:08:48):
Yeah, I love that idea.

Josiah (01:08:50):
Awesome, well, um, this has been awesome.
You guys.
I'm really excited to get theseries started.
I feel like there's there's somuch substance to this and so
much it's so much application.
We spent a lot of time todaylooking at what forgiveness
isn't and sort of dispellingsome of the myths or

(01:09:12):
misconceptions we have around ithangups that we often have and
then, after going through whatit is, mac took a stab at
defining forgiveness and Ithought I'd read it as we close
today.
Forgiveness is the intentionalprocess of choosing to no longer
count another person's sin orwrongdoing against them.

(01:09:33):
It's the cancellation of a debtowed without the need for
repayment, to open up the doorto the possibility of
reconciliation.

Mac (01:09:43):
Next time, we are going to start by naming the biggest
thing that gets in the way offorgiveness, namely what we
refer to as the cycle of enemymaking.
Okay, so thanks for joining ustoday, and we hope you'll tune
in next time.

Adam (01:10:04):
Praxis is recorded and produced at Crosspoint Community
Church.
You can find out more about dayand we hope you'll tune in next
time.
Be sure to subscribe whereveryou get your podcasts.