Embracing Forgiveness: Letting Go of Resentment

We live in a hurting world. We inflict hurt on other people, and we receive hurt from other people. Hurting is natural; forgiving is supernatural. Forgiving is God's gift, and so we're on a journey to forgiveness. I want to talk today particularly to those of you who find yourself thinking, "Yep, forgiveness seems like a good idea. I would like to forgive, but I can't forget." [00:00:32]

Forgiving and forgetting are two very different things. In fact, I can only forgive something if I'm aware of it, if I know it. Forgiving is not excusing; it's not to say there's no fault there. It's not understanding; it's saying I'm aware of it, and I will choose to no longer treat you as an unworthy person. [00:01:19]

Joseph named his firstborn Manasseh, which is a word that is connected with the Hebrew word for remembering, and said it is because God made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household. Now, this is before Joseph's reconnection with his brothers that we will look at later on. [00:04:08]

Has he actually forgotten all of his trouble? Has he actually forgotten all of his father's household? No, of course, he is not, and he's going to have to come around and deal with all that stuff in the years to come. So I don't know exactly why he puts it this way. Maybe it's kind of wishful thinking. [00:04:49]

Is there anger after forgiving? Yes, often it can't be helped. Some people believe they should not feel anger in their hearts after they forgive. I disagree. I think that anger and forgiving can live together in the same heart. And then he goes on to talk about forgiving and forgetting. [00:05:32]

A man does not forget that his father abused him as a child. A woman does not forget that her boss lied to her about her future in the company. You do not forget that a person you loved is taking cheap advantage of you and dropped you when the relationship was not paying off. [00:05:50]

The Prophet Jeremiah talks about God saying, "I will forgive your sins and remember them no more." But the idea here is not that God has amnesia or some problem bringing things back to his recall. It's that God loves you, feels about you, wills your good absolutely as strongly as he did if we had never done wrong. [00:06:28]

You can be angry still, and you can have your anger without hate. Once you start on your forgiving journey, you will begin to lose the passion of malice. This is where the distinction is so important. Those emotions that are kind of hot—anger, hurt, fear—are warning signals that remind us we need to take steps to be protected. [00:07:13]

Resentment, what L here calls malice, is the product of rumination, and there's always will that's involved in that. When that's going on, I am nursing a grudge. I am choosing to indulge in negative thoughts and feelings about you, my own superiority, how awful you were, how good I am. [00:07:41]

I will seek to think about you as a human being that God loves, for whom Jesus died. I will ask God to give me compassion for you or sympathy for you or empathy together with you. I will remember in humility that I also am someone who needs forgiveness, and I will want for that to be extended to you as well. [00:08:22]

Unforgiveness gets in our bodies, and so it can be helpful to use our bodies to express forgiveness. So here's the invitation: take both of your hands and put them out as far away from your body as you're able to do and clench your muscles. When unforgiveness gets in us, it produces tension in our muscles. [00:09:09]

Imagine that in your hands you are carrying the burden of unforgiveness, and keep those hands out while you feel that tension, while you feel that burden, and you are aware of what a negative, painful, helpless, hopeless thing it is to carry the burden—not just the experience of anger at a memory but that ruminating resentment. [00:09:39]