Forgive and Forget
August 9th, 2010“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” – Matthew 5:43
NFL referee Bill Leavy is asking the Seattle Seahawks and their fans for forgiveness. Speaking candidly after four and a half years to Seattle reporters about his officiating performance during the bitter Super Bowl XL loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, he acknowledged the mistakes he made during the game. “I kicked two calls in the fourth quarter and I impacted the game,” Leavy told Seattle-area media Friday. “I will go to my grave wishing I’d been better.” He went on to say, “I know that I did my best at that time, but it wasn’t good enough.”
“I think all of the officials we have in the NFL are stand-up guys, and Leavy is no different,” Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said. “It’s a game. It’s not a perfect science. There’s a lot of human involvement there.
“I played some games that I remember because I felt like I did a good job and I played some games where I had some regrets. That goes for any sport, any player. I’m sure coaching is no different, and in that same way I’m sure officiating is the same thing.”
When asked if he’d be willing to accept Leavy’s apology, Hasselbeck, a devout Christian, told reporters, “I’m still a little upset about losing my high school state championship game. There are just some games you’re never going to forget. Put it on the list.”
It’s hard sometimes even for believers to forgive and forget. I recently came across a list that I had made some fifteen years ago of hurts, resentments or grudges in which I needed to find freedom. There were twenty-four names on that list of people who for one reason or another had caused me pain. Twenty-four people who I was struggling to forgive. I remembered at the time having sort of a “come to Jesus” moment in which I prayed and gave every one of those names to the Lord and asked God to help me love those people. And the funny thing is fifteen years later I find myself struggling to even remember who many of those people were and what they had done to hurt me. God had answered my prayers.
I say, “many of those people,” but unfortunately not all. Looking back on that list I still see one name that continues to haunt me. One name that fifteen years later is now joined by other new names of different people from which I’ve suffered hurt. And I find myself once again needing God’s grace to be able to forgive.
Forgiveness is not an easy thing to do. Oh it’s one thing to forgive someone for one indiscretion or injustice, for harsh words said in the heat of a moment or a careless action that brings you pain. But what about those people that continue to hurt you year after painful year with no signs of remorse and no willingness to acknowledge their offenses? What are we to do with them?
Oh, we could fight back. We could practice hurling zingers at them, waiting for just the right occasion. We could give them a piece of our mind, though it’s been my experience that most of us can’t spare a bit. We could confront them and demand an apology. We could shun them. We could put up a wall so that they’ll never be able to hurt us again. But none of that ever really takes away the hurt, does it?
Or we can learn to love them.
“But Lord, I don’t want to love them! I want them to get what’s coming to them! I want them to pay for what they’ve done to me! I want the heavens to open up and fire and brimstone to fall out of the sky! I want justice to be served!”
No, I need God’s grace to be able to love them. See, it’s real easy to love the nice people in this world. We don’t need to be told how to do that. It just sort of comes naturally. But Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” That requires a lot more effort, doesn’t it?
“But how, Lord? How do I get past this? How can I just overlook what they’ve done?”
Jesus said, “Pray for those who persecute you.” We generally think of persecution coming from nonbelievers. But Christians can very often times be the source of great trouble in our lives. And the first step toward finding healing in those relationships and freedom from resentment is prayer. As we begin to pray for those individuals who have hurt us, the Lord forms a bond between us. As we pray, our hearts become united with God’s heart as He opens our spiritual eyes to their needs. When the needs of others begin to burden our hearts the way they burden God’s heart, we begin to love.
“Dear Lord, I need so desperately to be freed from these bitter resentments that I continue to carry. I ask your blessing on my persecutors. Would you meet them where they are right now and pour out your mercy? Please, burden my heart with their needs and help me learn to love them. Amen.”
August 18th, 2010 at 8:36 am
Perhaps the reason for Brett Farve’s indecision over whether or not to play another year of football is because he has suffered injury upon injury for the past 20 years! I’m sure it gives him pause to reflect on whether or not he wants to put himself through that kind of pain for yet another year! But, a good coach will train him for endurance. There is no guarantee that Brett will escape uninjured, however he will have the training to not only endure, but to be prepared for any possible play.
That’s the key to Christian living. Like any good coach, God will continue to bring situations into our lives until we get the play right. He doesn’t promise it will be without pain, but He does give us what we need to not only endure the pain, but to come out victorious.
We know WHAT scripture says about dealing with resentment, but sometimes we need a little coaching to know HOW to deal with hurt and resentment. I’ve personally been in and out of counseling for well over 25 years to work on the HOW. Here are a few key principles I’ve learned along the way:
1. DON’T DWELL ON THE HURT. Eph. 4:26-27 says “In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” (NIV) Satan would like nothing more than to ruin our relationships and render us ineffective in our love for others. While anger is a legitimate emotion, dwelling on it leads to resentment,whch can lead to bitterness and vindivictiveness.
2. THINK HAPPY THOUGHTS. As Kay Arthur likes to put it,”Philippians 4:8 that thought!” When those hurtful thoughts come into our minds, we need to filter them by asking ourselves,” is this true, is this noble, is this right, is this pure, is this lovely, or excellent, or praiseworthy?” If not, then we need to seek out comforting words from scripture to dwell on, “and the God of peace shall be with us”.
3.LOOK AT THE OFFENDER THROUGH THE EYES OF JESUS. The perfect example of compassion and forgiveness is Jesus, hanging on the cross, while the pharisees are mocking him. I don’t know about you, but if it were me up there, I would have said,” You people are sooo not worth this!”
Instead, our loving Savior said,”Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” Jesus understood that they were broken inside, and even pitied them for the judgement that would await them because they rejected him. The young man in our church who is in a wheel chair will never physically be able to serve his new bride in the ways she will always be able to serve him. If she is ever sick or breaks her leg, he won’t be able to get out of his chair to help her in the ways that she helps him every day, When we see people through the eyes of Jesus, we recognize that some people are so emotionally broken and scarred, that they will never be able to love us the way we want them to. It should not prevent us from loving them completely.
4. DON’T BE AFRAID TO LOVE. l John 4:18 tells us, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He who feareth is not made perfect in love” This is so key in overcoming the fear of rejection. Even when someone wounds or rejects us, unconditional love for that person takes the sting out. It gives us the freedom to love them no matter how they respond.
5. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT. Like any other athlete, Brett Farve didn’t get to be where he is in the NFL without practice. Ephesians 4:32 instructs us to “Be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you”. When we practice kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness in the face of hurt and rejection, we get better at dealing with the hurt. Often when we are faced with hurt we ask the Lord,”What did I do to deserve this?” Often times we may not have done anything at all. However, as our beloved Dr. Craymer used to say,” ‘Why me ?’ is never the right question to ask of the Lord. The right question is, ‘ What can I learn from this’ “. What we can always learn from hurt is forgiveness and mercy. In Matthew 5:7 Jesus tells us,”Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”. Obviously we will not receive mercy from everyone, but we will alwalys receive it from God. Because we receive it from God, we should want to show it to others. After all, he sees all of our shortcomings and loves us anyway. By not being merciful to others when they hurt us, in a sense, we are saying we are better than God. When Peter asked Jesus in Matt. 18 if seven times was enough to forgive his brother, Jesus told him SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN. Obviously Jesus did not intend for us to keep an account of how many times we forgave someone so we could stop at 490! The point was that we were not to keep an account. When God forgives us, he no longer holds it against us. He wants us to do the same with each other,