Real Forgiveness: Costly Suffering

Today I want to write about forgiveness. It is something that God has been challenging me in, and calling me into, for a while now; but it seems like all of the points have aligned in my mind and understanding through a couple of conversations in the past week, and I am finally beginning to understand what true forgiveness is, and to finally submit to this process.

See, I always thought when people talked about forgiving others that it sounded all sweet and nice, and I totally agreed that it is something that we should do as Christians. But it always sounded to me like they just up and decided to do it one day, and that was that. Which is fine, until you're actually faced with forgiving someone in a situation where there is real pain - the kind that roots down deep and starts to reproduce bitterness in the heart. That isn't something you just decide you'll overlook and get over.

I was talking to my dear hermana the other night, who has this incredible ability to get straight to the heart of issues, convict me at every turn, and still speak hard truth in love and grace (if that's a Latin American thing, I totally need to spend some more time there & aquire these skills - thanks, M, I'm so glad you're in my life!) I was telling her about recognizing unforgiveness in my heart lately (I think the Lord has been gently revealing it to me for months now, honestly) and how I want to be free of this anger and bitterness and hurt that rears its ugly head every so often. I told her that I felt like waiting until "time has healed the heart" to forgive felt wrong to me - disobedient and not at all following the example of forgiveness that Christ has set for us. I mean, what about "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" and the fact that He asked the Father to forgive those who had put him on the cross, while he was dying on it? No, we are to forgive in the midst of the pain, not after enough time has passed that we can do it more easily. She gently affirmed this conviction, reminding me of the Lord's Prayer, where we ask Him "to forgive our tresspasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us" (ouch! - in a state of unforgiveness, that would be asking Him to hold onto anger and bitterness and a desire to see me suffer). She also spoke of the idea (I think coming from the Gospels where Jesus says that if we don't forgive others, neither will God forgive us) that unforgiveness causes a veil in the heart between the two people in question, and if there is a veil between you and another person, there is a veil between you and God as well. Our relationships with one another have profound effects on our relationship with the Lord, because he is a relational God who created us for community.

For some reason, those words hit me in a way that nothing else has so far. Would I let the anger and hurt that I don't even want inside of me get in the way of intimacy with the Lord? I don't even want a veil between me and the other person - I want to give that person freedom to walk in joy and honor and dignity. I don't want to withold that freedom from them. But then there is that part that remembers the hurts. That can list them. That is still healing. That can't let go and want's the other person to have to suffer somehow. To feel the pain that I feel. So how do you let go of that?

I think its incredible that we hear so little about the "how" of forgiveness. It can't be cheap. It can't be just looking past all of the hurt and wrongdoing - believe me, I've tried that and there was still bitterness in my heart. It feels cheap, to just "get over it all" like everyone seems to describe forgiveness. It feels like ignoring the very real wrongs that were done, and that flies in the face of the sense of justice that we all have a longing for, deep down. I was sharing all of this with another friend a couple of days ago, and she mentioned some of Tim Keller's words on forgiveness, which finally completed all of these ideas for me. The reason that the idea of "just forgive and forget" seems so cheap and impossible is that it IS! Justice has, in fact, been violated.
A few quotes from Keller's chapter, "The (True) Story of the Cross" in A Reason for God:

"We still have a sense of violated justice that does not go away when the other person says, 'I'm really sorry.' When we are seriously wronged we have an indelible sense that the perpetrators have incurred a debt that must be dealt with."

(He speaks of how there are 2 options - make the person pay, either actively lashing out at them in word or deed, or passively, hoping they suffer, telling others how you were wronged, etc.)

"There is another option, however. You can forgive. Forgiveness means refusing to make them pay for what they did. However, to refrain from lashing out at someone when you want to do so with all your being is agony. It is a form of suffering. You no only suffer the original loss or happiness, reputation, and opportunity, but now you forgo the consolation of inflicting the same on them. You are absorbing the debt, taking the cost of it completely on yourself instead of taking it out on the other person. It hurts terribly. Many people would say it feels like a kind of death."

And here is the answer. You don't simply choose to ignore and "get over" all of the pain and hurt - you can't. That sense that my pain is real and must be acknowledged as such is absolutely right! That gut feeling that someone must pay is, in fact, correct. Its just that in forgiving, we take on that debt ourselves. We suffer without requiring the other to suffer as well. We bear the burden, and it is a kind of death. All of this is beautifully illustrated and defined by the way that Christ forgave us. Why did He have to die? Because a real debt was incurred. Real wrong was done to God by our sin, He just chose the path of forgiveness, by taking the burden of the debt upon Himself. But just as His absorbtion of our debt led to resurrection, so does our forgiveness:

"Yes, but it is a death that leads to resurrection instead of the lifelong living death of bitterness and cynicism...you have to submit to the costly suffering and death of forgiveness if there is going to be any resurrection."

And so we forgive, choosing to bear the burden of the pain and suffering, because it leads to resurrection - both for us and the other party. We forgive because Christ first forgave us. I desire to see the other person walk in the freedom and lightness of forgiveness because I live and walk in that freedom, and how could I not want it for someone else? And that kind of love and forgiveness changes everyone involved - as Keller said, it leads to resurrection. We are a resurrection people. Let us choose to walk in the life and light and love that sometimes comes only after passing through the dark suffering of forgiveness.