June 27, 2025 • 13 mins
All of us have been hurt, offended and pushed aside by someone, and it brings bitterness and anger and resentment. But as Christians we need to learn how to forgive. It's difficult, but possible.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, I'm Mark, and thank you for joining me today
on Words of Truth, where I try to make a
sense of some of life's issues that we encounter every
day as followers of Jesus Christ. Now I've been thinking
about this topic of forgiveness for some time now. It's
(00:22):
maybe one of the most challenging, can I say, underrated
difficult practices of the Christian life, and yet it's one
of the most crucial things that we can do. Throughout
my sixty eight years of life, I could rehearse to
you many many times I've been hurt, offended, had bad
(00:43):
things said about me, been misunderstood and slandered, and pushed
aside by people who I once considered to be my friends.
And you know, when that happens, I naturally do what
most of us do. I become angry and frustrated, might
even pout for a bit. Sometimes I've been able to
(01:03):
reconcile with the other person, and sometimes, well, reconciliation has
never come. And I've always thought about what it means
to truly forgive even though there was no reconciliation. And
as I've studied this issue, it's a complex one that
I can't fully talk about in this short podcast. Well,
(01:24):
I can talk about it, but we can't fully explore it.
But I think that I can maybe boil forgiveness down
to three phases. And today I'm borrowing some of my
thoughts from a book by Rob Renow entitled Healing Family Relationships,
A Guide to Peace and Reconciliation. The first phase that
(01:47):
I'd like to talk about for forgiveness is that we
need to have a desire or a willingness to forgive.
And in the Bible, Jesus commands us to forgive, does
he not? Of course he does. Matthew Chapter eighteen, verse
twenty two commands us to forgive seventy times seven Matthew
(02:08):
chapter six, and the Lord's Prayer, Jesus said to pray
forgive us our debts, as we also forgive the debts
of others Matthew five forty four. Jesus taught us to
love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
So we're commanded to forgive others, but we also have
to choose to forgive. You see, forgiveness is really an
(02:32):
act of obedience to Christ, and it's here that we're
faced with a number of obstacles. We might say, well,
I'm not ready to forgive, it's understandable. Or we might
say the other person hasn't taken any responsibility for their
being bad behavior. Or we might say the other person
(02:54):
hasn't apologized and ask for forgiveness. Or we might think, well,
even if I forgive them, they're just going to continue
to be toxic in their behavior. And you know, while
all of those things are important and maybe even relevant,
they're not factors in this first phase of forgiveness. You see,
(03:17):
in this phase, our feelings are not our friend, and
they might even keep us from taking a step that
will lead to healing and freedom. If we wait until
we're ready to forgive, well we might end up waiting
our entire life. So how do we take this first
(03:40):
step toward forgiveness. Well, I would encourage you to get
alane with God for a while and talk to him
about it. That's the first step. And then take out
a piece of paper. Here's something very practical. Take out
a piece of paper and write down what happened when
you were hurt, how made you feel. And this is
(04:01):
just for you and the Lord. You're gonna you're not
gonna show it to anyone just ask the Lord to
bring to your mind specific things people have said or
done over the years that have hurt you, and write
them down. And then when you're done, just close your
eyes and in prayer, choose to forgive them of each
(04:21):
individual thing you wrote down. Now, this is the choose
to forgive phase. Here's maybe how you could pray. You
could say, Heavenly Father, so and so put their name
in there. So and so has left a deep wound
in my heart. And I don't really feel like I
want to forgive this person. They haven't asked for forgiveness,
(04:46):
they haven't acknowledged how they hurt me. But I know
you want me to forgive them so that I can
be free from bitterness. So I'm choosing to forgive them
for what they did to me. It can kind of
be a purr something like that. Just start by making
the choice to forgive, and then after you're done, well,
(05:09):
you can throw that piece of paper away, or if
it makes you feel better, you can burn it. Now,
here's what happens when you take that first step of forgiveness.
And I'm borrowing an illustration from Rob Renow. He writes,
imagine an old wooden bucket over the years, your family
(05:29):
drops in glops of thick mud. These are the hurts
and wounds you have experienced now, because your bucket is
filled to the rim. Anytime someone in your house, or
your friend or anyone drops in another glop boom. You're
so filled with hurt and resentment from the past that
(05:52):
any new offense causes everything to overflow. When we make
the choice to forgive, it's like taking a hammer and
smashing a hole in the bottom of the bucket. When
we tear the hammer out, a big glop of mud
comes out with it. Now, instead of one hundred percent
(06:13):
full of pass hurt and resentment, we're only ninety five
percent full. Well, it may be only five percent. You'll
sense a bit of emotional breathing room, something maybe you
haven't felt for a long time. I think that's a
great illustration. But here's the problem with that. Even though
(06:33):
we take the first step of having a willingness to forgive, well,
there's still ninety five percent of our bitterness and anger
in that bucket. And that leads to the second phase.
So the first phase is to make a choice to forgive.
The second phase is we need to come to a
place where we can forgive from the heart. Now, this
(06:57):
is going to be the most difficult phase. The first
phase is simply stating that we're willing, but now that
willingness has to somehow seep into our heart. Matthew eighteen
thirty five. Jesus calls us to forgive our brother from
the heart. You see, the heart is God's territory. God
(07:18):
is the only one who has the power to change
our heart. And so if we want our heart to change,
well God has to do it. Using Renow's illustration, if
we want that old bucket to be drained of all
the bitterness and anger and resentment, well we need to
open our heart to God. And that means that we
(07:39):
need to go to God in prayer, and we might
need to pray this prayer daily for some time before
our hearts are truly prepared to forgive. The prayer might
be something like this, Lord, I've chosen to forgive this person,
and you can name that person. It wasn't easy, and
I still have any warm feelings toward them, and I
(08:03):
admit I don't want to do this because I'm afraid
of being hurt again. But I'm choosing to forgive out
of obedience to you. And now I'm asking that you'll
heal my heart. I don't want to hate this person.
I don't want to feel anger and resentment, and I
don't want what they did to poison my life. And
(08:25):
so I'm asking that you'll cleanse my heart of anything
that keeps me from being free. Something like that, A
prayer like that. Now, again, this is gonna take some time,
maybe a week or a month, maybe even years. But
keep at it, because slowly God will begin working on
(08:46):
your heart to drain out that old bucket and make
you free to forgive. He'll bring healing to your heart.
But don't give up. Keep at it. And then the
final phase of forgiveness is to be reconciled. Now, don't
tune me out here, because I know what some of
(09:07):
you are thinking. I thought it for years. Over the years,
I've heard people say, well, true forgiveness requires reconciliation, and
that's true, but not in the way that I thought
about it for a long time. In fact, I always
struggled with that idea because sometimes there's no reconciliation. But
(09:28):
here's what I've discovered. I've discovered that it's possible for
God to bring us to a place of complete forgiveness
without that relationship being fully restored or healed or reconciled.
You see, it might be that the person who hurt
you never repents, never ask forgiveness, never takes responsibility for
(09:51):
what happened. What do we do then, Well, we need
to understand that forgiveness isn't just sweeping things under the rug,
try to forget about it and then move on. No, no,
it's not enabling or tolerating any sort of ongoing abuse.
And again, I wish I had time to fully explore
(10:13):
this idea of reconciliation. But let me just say here
that our responsibility before the Lord is to do everything
in our power as far as it depends on us
to forgive. Romans Chapter twelve, verse eighteen says, if possible,
so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
(10:35):
Now here's the thing. We can't control the thoughts or
the heart or the behavior of people who offend us.
They might not even have an interest in forgiveness or reconciliation.
Years ago, my wife and I were deeply offended by
a person's actions and words. A letter was sent to
(10:58):
that person in an effort to bring some understanding and
healing and reconciliation. But that person never responded to our efforts,
And so does that mean there can't be true forgiveness
and healing. Absolutely not. You see, we can't control how
other people respond, but as far as it depends on us,
(11:19):
we can still seek healing in our own hearts by
forgiving that person, and in that sense there can be
reconciliation because it's reconciliation with God and with our emotions
and with our own bitterness. Now, let me just say,
if that's something that may need to be repeated, find
(11:43):
a way to remind yourself that you have forgiven that person.
I mean, plant a shrub, or write something on a rock,
or put up a little figurine something that when you
look at it, you can say, no, no, no, you know
that is in my past. I don't need to be
bitter anymore. I have forgiven and I've laid that aside.
(12:09):
And you may need to do that several times a
year or a month or a week, because forgiveness sometimes
is not just a one time thing that we do,
but it's something we continued to do. And I pray
(12:30):
that God will bring healing and remove the bitterness and
the deep feelings of resentment and the hurt in your
life as you do that. Well, that's all the time
we have today. I hope this helps. Thanks for listening,
(12:51):
and if you found this helpful to yourself, maybe you
should pass it on to somebody else and subscribe to
this podcast. See you next time.
Hi, I'm Mark, and thank you for joining me today
on Words of Truth, where I try to make a
sense of some of life's issues that we encounter every
day as followers of Jesus Christ. Now I've been thinking
about this topic of forgiveness for some time now. It's
(00:22):
maybe one of the most challenging, can I say, underrated
difficult practices of the Christian life, and yet it's one
of the most crucial things that we can do. Throughout
my sixty eight years of life, I could rehearse to
you many many times I've been hurt, offended, had bad
(00:43):
things said about me, been misunderstood and slandered, and pushed
aside by people who I once considered to be my friends.
And you know, when that happens, I naturally do what
most of us do. I become angry and frustrated, might
even pout for a bit. Sometimes I've been able to
(01:03):
reconcile with the other person, and sometimes, well, reconciliation has
never come. And I've always thought about what it means
to truly forgive even though there was no reconciliation. And
as I've studied this issue, it's a complex one that
I can't fully talk about in this short podcast. Well,
(01:24):
I can talk about it, but we can't fully explore it.
But I think that I can maybe boil forgiveness down
to three phases. And today I'm borrowing some of my
thoughts from a book by Rob Renow entitled Healing Family Relationships,
A Guide to Peace and Reconciliation. The first phase that
(01:47):
I'd like to talk about for forgiveness is that we
need to have a desire or a willingness to forgive.
And in the Bible, Jesus commands us to forgive, does
he not? Of course he does. Matthew Chapter eighteen, verse
twenty two commands us to forgive seventy times seven Matthew
(02:08):
chapter six, and the Lord's Prayer, Jesus said to pray
forgive us our debts, as we also forgive the debts
of others Matthew five forty four. Jesus taught us to
love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
So we're commanded to forgive others, but we also have
to choose to forgive. You see, forgiveness is really an
(02:32):
act of obedience to Christ, and it's here that we're
faced with a number of obstacles. We might say, well,
I'm not ready to forgive, it's understandable. Or we might
say the other person hasn't taken any responsibility for their
being bad behavior. Or we might say the other person
(02:54):
hasn't apologized and ask for forgiveness. Or we might think, well,
even if I forgive them, they're just going to continue
to be toxic in their behavior. And you know, while
all of those things are important and maybe even relevant,
they're not factors in this first phase of forgiveness. You see,
(03:17):
in this phase, our feelings are not our friend, and
they might even keep us from taking a step that
will lead to healing and freedom. If we wait until
we're ready to forgive, well we might end up waiting
our entire life. So how do we take this first
(03:40):
step toward forgiveness. Well, I would encourage you to get
alane with God for a while and talk to him
about it. That's the first step. And then take out
a piece of paper. Here's something very practical. Take out
a piece of paper and write down what happened when
you were hurt, how made you feel. And this is
(04:01):
just for you and the Lord. You're gonna you're not
gonna show it to anyone just ask the Lord to
bring to your mind specific things people have said or
done over the years that have hurt you, and write
them down. And then when you're done, just close your
eyes and in prayer, choose to forgive them of each
(04:21):
individual thing you wrote down. Now, this is the choose
to forgive phase. Here's maybe how you could pray. You
could say, Heavenly Father, so and so put their name
in there. So and so has left a deep wound
in my heart. And I don't really feel like I
want to forgive this person. They haven't asked for forgiveness,
(04:46):
they haven't acknowledged how they hurt me. But I know
you want me to forgive them so that I can
be free from bitterness. So I'm choosing to forgive them
for what they did to me. It can kind of
be a purr something like that. Just start by making
the choice to forgive, and then after you're done, well,
(05:09):
you can throw that piece of paper away, or if
it makes you feel better, you can burn it. Now,
here's what happens when you take that first step of forgiveness.
And I'm borrowing an illustration from Rob Renow. He writes,
imagine an old wooden bucket over the years, your family
(05:29):
drops in glops of thick mud. These are the hurts
and wounds you have experienced now, because your bucket is
filled to the rim. Anytime someone in your house, or
your friend or anyone drops in another glop boom. You're
so filled with hurt and resentment from the past that
(05:52):
any new offense causes everything to overflow. When we make
the choice to forgive, it's like taking a hammer and
smashing a hole in the bottom of the bucket. When
we tear the hammer out, a big glop of mud
comes out with it. Now, instead of one hundred percent
(06:13):
full of pass hurt and resentment, we're only ninety five
percent full. Well, it may be only five percent. You'll
sense a bit of emotional breathing room, something maybe you
haven't felt for a long time. I think that's a
great illustration. But here's the problem with that. Even though
(06:33):
we take the first step of having a willingness to forgive, well,
there's still ninety five percent of our bitterness and anger
in that bucket. And that leads to the second phase.
So the first phase is to make a choice to forgive.
The second phase is we need to come to a
place where we can forgive from the heart. Now, this
(06:57):
is going to be the most difficult phase. The first
phase is simply stating that we're willing, but now that
willingness has to somehow seep into our heart. Matthew eighteen
thirty five. Jesus calls us to forgive our brother from
the heart. You see, the heart is God's territory. God
(07:18):
is the only one who has the power to change
our heart. And so if we want our heart to change,
well God has to do it. Using Renow's illustration, if
we want that old bucket to be drained of all
the bitterness and anger and resentment, well we need to
open our heart to God. And that means that we
(07:39):
need to go to God in prayer, and we might
need to pray this prayer daily for some time before
our hearts are truly prepared to forgive. The prayer might
be something like this, Lord, I've chosen to forgive this person,
and you can name that person. It wasn't easy, and
I still have any warm feelings toward them, and I
(08:03):
admit I don't want to do this because I'm afraid
of being hurt again. But I'm choosing to forgive out
of obedience to you. And now I'm asking that you'll
heal my heart. I don't want to hate this person.
I don't want to feel anger and resentment, and I
don't want what they did to poison my life. And
(08:25):
so I'm asking that you'll cleanse my heart of anything
that keeps me from being free. Something like that, A
prayer like that. Now, again, this is gonna take some time,
maybe a week or a month, maybe even years. But
keep at it, because slowly God will begin working on
(08:46):
your heart to drain out that old bucket and make
you free to forgive. He'll bring healing to your heart.
But don't give up. Keep at it. And then the
final phase of forgiveness is to be reconciled. Now, don't
tune me out here, because I know what some of
(09:07):
you are thinking. I thought it for years. Over the years,
I've heard people say, well, true forgiveness requires reconciliation, and
that's true, but not in the way that I thought
about it for a long time. In fact, I always
struggled with that idea because sometimes there's no reconciliation. But
(09:28):
here's what I've discovered. I've discovered that it's possible for
God to bring us to a place of complete forgiveness
without that relationship being fully restored or healed or reconciled.
You see, it might be that the person who hurt
you never repents, never ask forgiveness, never takes responsibility for
(09:51):
what happened. What do we do then, Well, we need
to understand that forgiveness isn't just sweeping things under the rug,
try to forget about it and then move on. No, no,
it's not enabling or tolerating any sort of ongoing abuse.
And again, I wish I had time to fully explore
(10:13):
this idea of reconciliation. But let me just say here
that our responsibility before the Lord is to do everything
in our power as far as it depends on us
to forgive. Romans Chapter twelve, verse eighteen says, if possible,
so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
(10:35):
Now here's the thing. We can't control the thoughts or
the heart or the behavior of people who offend us.
They might not even have an interest in forgiveness or reconciliation.
Years ago, my wife and I were deeply offended by
a person's actions and words. A letter was sent to
(10:58):
that person in an effort to bring some understanding and
healing and reconciliation. But that person never responded to our efforts,
And so does that mean there can't be true forgiveness
and healing. Absolutely not. You see, we can't control how
other people respond, but as far as it depends on us,
(11:19):
we can still seek healing in our own hearts by
forgiving that person, and in that sense there can be
reconciliation because it's reconciliation with God and with our emotions
and with our own bitterness. Now, let me just say,
if that's something that may need to be repeated, find
(11:43):
a way to remind yourself that you have forgiven that person.
I mean, plant a shrub, or write something on a rock,
or put up a little figurine something that when you
look at it, you can say, no, no, no, you know
that is in my past. I don't need to be
bitter anymore. I have forgiven and I've laid that aside.
(12:09):
And you may need to do that several times a
year or a month or a week, because forgiveness sometimes
is not just a one time thing that we do,
but it's something we continued to do. And I pray
(12:30):
that God will bring healing and remove the bitterness and
the deep feelings of resentment and the hurt in your
life as you do that. Well, that's all the time
we have today. I hope this helps. Thanks for listening,
(12:51):
and if you found this helpful to yourself, maybe you
should pass it on to somebody else and subscribe to
this podcast. See you next time.
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