Forgiveness

Reading John Arnott's book on forgiveness (The Importance of Forgiveness), my mind's curative and creative powers are stirred. Arnott is a man who I have met and observed on videos of the legendary Toronto church. I’ve thought, "wow, now that is real! There is a man who embodies true commitment to the word of God." Love so easily pours out from me to him as I watch one of the videos, loving someone who has helped me so immensely. It is a privilege to be able to read and hear, "from the horse's mouth," the theory behind his very effective practice.

Many thoughts have rushed to the surface as he talks on forgiveness. His book compels me to go on and add the enlightenment God brings with along with his insights.

Someone once said that the more you dive into the deep and sort out what is complicated, the simpler everything becomes. Maybe this is what has been happening to science. I feel that I am also a person who goes in, sorts out the things of the deep and the complex issues, and then ties them up-handing them to you in a fashion in which the complexities are resolved. I don't know how to describe it, but the Lord has blessed me so much with the gift of thought. If I just begin to think and probe, eventually, truth comes to me and I find an answer. I love the process! It is a form of science, if you will. I love to think!

Of course, just as The X-files says, "the truth is out there," and many people of the world, in general, can do this same thing. They can find some of the same universal truths. But always, they find truths that hang there by themselves-so many little truths, but nothing to adequately tie them together. In Jesus, we have the peace and security of having that one common tie to which all truth is bound. I thank God with all my heart for giving that to me.

For me, thinking is stretching the mind. With each new revelation comes thought that a mind imbued with the Holy Spirit brings, and I am further healed! I feel relief, a new breath of air!

My only problem with his book on forgiveness is this: John seems to say that every act of unkindness from an individual stems from one's own lack of forgiveness. He seems to blame us for every thing wrong that happens to us. Certainly lack of forgiveness has repercussions in relationships, but it's almost as if John is justifying the unkind person's act and blaming the one who received it. He is totally blaming it on the recipient's lack of forgiveness.

What about the many who are falsely accused and those scorned as the Word says we will be for following Jesus?

What about the fact that bullies like to hurt the already wounded?

I just don’t get it. A person is wounded and because of it he or she has a problem forgiving. Now, he says, they attract new problems and on and on it goes. So, they are hopeless? First they get wounded and then they hopelessly get wounded over and over, until they forgive? What if they forgive to the best of their ability but still find themselves being bullied? Then he says that they haven’t done a perfect job of forgiving and it’s all blamed on them.

Main body of this essay:

One basic truth stands out for me in the area of forgiveness: it is hard to forgive. We may find it hard to forgive because we have been robbed. For example: imagine the feelings of a person who has lost his child in the conflict between the two sides of the Irish conflict. Imagine how much anger and bitterness that might stir up, and the acts that would follow.

For me, feeling robbed comes from seeing man in a petty state of existence. I feel robbed by losing a hoard of values and special delights that society once offered in my childhood. I feel robbed of the things I learned to expect in life based on what my childhood taught me to expect.

Forgiveness does not mean that we cannot be angry. It means not letting the anger exist after "the sun goes down." We should not try to trap the angry soul by telling them that they have to deal with all situations instantaneously-with no anger-to be truly godly. ANGER IS NOT HATRED OR BITTERNESS, BUT WHEN PEOPLE ARE ANGRY, THEY ARE OFTEN ACCUSED OF THIS.

First of all, acknowledge the wrong and what it has done to you. Acknowledge that you have been robbed by someone in some way, and recognize what it is doing to you. This is the first step. "Be angry, but sin not!" This is what the Word says, doesn't it?

Second of all, find out how God can pay you back what someone else owes you instead of that person. This is the key.

God is like a rich man who comes along and says--"why do you, who have a fair amount of money and provisions go out to the beggars in the street who grovel for scraps (spiritually speaking) and wait for them, or demand for them to repay you what they have stolen? Here, I have the money to pay you back. Though I do not owe you one single penny, I still will pay the debt that they owe to you so you don't have to go to them any longer!"

See, God can do this for us if we are willing to receive our supplies from a spiritual source and not from a person.

HOW ARE WE EXPECTED TO DEAL WITH THIS? WHAT FORMULA CAN WE USE EACH AND EVERY TIME WE NEED TO FORGIVE? First, we must move away from trusting in man in general, and we must begin to learn how to receive things from God that we cannot receive from man. When man disappoints us and betrays us, we will have the power to forgive if we learn to discontinue placing so much importance upon the role of other people in our own happiness.

This kind of thought used to bug me. I used to envision a person who lives like a hermit and doesn't need people. No! YOU MERELY DO NOT NEED PEOPLE IF WHAT YOU NEED IS SOMETHING PEOPLE CANNOT PROVIDE! One of our biggest problems that leads to bitterness is wrong ideas about the degree to which other people should be supplying our needs. We have got to, individually and collectively, determine how much we should be expecting from other people, and how much is too much!

The person who lost his child in the Irish wars has to recognize that man kills and steals and destroys as an adjunct to the main enemy-the devil. He has to recognize that God still has a purpose and plan in all things-even the death of his child. He has to realize that God requires forgiveness of the murderer regardless of the pain. Then he has to gain from God (a spiritual entity) what he has lost. What he has truly lost is his serenity, his faith, his happiness, his joy and not just his child.

We have to learn what it means to pull out of the spiritual realm what we need in the material, emotional, physical, sexual, mental, etc, realms, in other words, what we call the "natural". THE SPIRIT WORLD CREATED THE MATERIAL, SO THE SPIRIT WORLD IS THE REAL ONE! Unless we can step out of the natural realm and into the spiritual, we cannot forgive. Let's all acknowledge before we judge those who cannot forgive that it takes a great deal of faith and grace before it is going to happen concretely.

Expectations and Romantic love

Hollywood and other influences have helped to reinforce many myths about the things we should expect from other people, and how to get them. Don't get me wrong. I am one of the greatest fans of Hollywood movies and feel strongly that they have also done a great deal of good.

But, there are two sides. Hollywood has helped weave many myths about romantic love. Of course, romantic love is the biggest area of deception in human relationships, and consequently, the biggest area of regret, remorse, frustration, and wounding. The key to understanding romantic love is that it is the relationship that is connected to the powerful feelings we have towards our parents.

Loving Mom and Dad is a passionate love that we hold in our hearts with the same degree of intensity as we do towards potential mates. No other relationship can lead to hurt and disappointment like this one. None of us can very likely comprehend the degree of feeling we hold towards our parents. The potential for hate comes from the degree of intimacy we have had with them, and the dependency we have had on them. We hate people for not giving us what it seems we had every right to receive from them.

You can't take a baby and teach him or her the things I am trying to teach right now on losing our dependency on people. A baby will depend a great deal on his parents, that is a given. What we do for the rest of our lives to correct the wrongs that have occurred out of these familial and imperfect situations is part of the great journey that an adult life is all about. It is a great quest and it can have immense rewards, if we end up in the loving arms of a loving heavenly father-a truly personal God. Some might conclude that the whole point of everything we have experienced negatively was meant for that very purpose: to show us the immensity of God's perfection and love.

In romantic love situations, what usually causes hurt almost immediately is that many people begin too early defining their expectations in ways that are too unrealistic, and having sex too early reinforces the dependence on man that doesn't work.

We must have an autonomy that God has ordained for humans. We must understand the correct way to have a relationship, especially if it's sexual. The only right way to have a relationship with someone else is when we are whole on our own, but we choose to bless another person with our love and our gifts. Romantic love should be a celebration of love between two people who could survive very well on their own, yet enjoy the love shared between the two. The kind of dependence often depicted in Hollywood films would have disastrous results that are never shown realistically in those situations!

God can make us very whole on our own. A relationship with God is the only way to achieve that. A relationship, especially one with one of the opposite gender in a marriage type, has to be a gift from God that we enjoy as something God gave, and as something God can take away if He desires! We have to remain in a right fellowship with God and we have to see ourselves as complete in Him!

Bitterness seems to be the only way to get over a romantic love that we know is not good for us, in the natural. We defend ourselves against further hurt by having a perpetual anger (bitterness) towards that person. In Jesus, the believer always has to be able to resist evil and remain vulnerable. It is one of the many ways that being a Christian is so very, very difficult. We forgive, but we choose not to put our self in the path of that person's hurtful ways at the same time. It is easier to defend against further hurt by creating a hard shell of bitterness.

In the era of love growing cold, we better be very careful to get this important principle of depending on God for our supply. The enemy will use everything he can get. Since it says that we are cursed if we depend on man and make flesh our "arm", that curse gives license to Satan to do what he wants. We are safe, in our strong tower when we no longer go to man for our supply. We all have been brought into this world to depend-to grow together with others like a beehive and to conform. We have to unlearn. Autonomy in God is not anti-authority, anti-community or anti-intimate friendship or marriage at all. But we have to learn what it is. We have to find the narrow path to life, which requires not too much of one and not too much of another-a careful balance. Balance is too hard for most people-you cannot be lazy and have a balance.

There is also the danger of letting people continue to do evil things because that's “forgiveness”. Such thinking is twisted. To the best of your God-given ability you should stop the person from doing anything more-stop the cycle of revenge, stop the rapist, stop the thief, stop the preacher from living a double life, etc. We have a responsibility of discipline towards others when we see them doing wrong, and that discipline has to be discerned, but we can't forsake it in the name of being forgiving. Too often people try to avoid confrontation by saying you are judging them. When you confront others in areas that are serious for all concerned, it is your duty to confront.

We must reach out to the unseen spiritual world, now, before we perish and bring others with us, to receive what we need to heal the broken heart that brings deep bitterness and hatred (a root of bitterness). Most of us wait for people to do for us or bring us the things we need. We seek compensation, we seek recompense, etc. and we can't get it if we wait on man, because "cursed is he who trusts in man." The bible is clear! Trusting in man will result in a curse on our lives. This is serious! We all do it and we don't even see what we're doing. But God didn't make this path so easy, did he? We still walk under a curse because of what we cannot see.

If we can't see God and reach out to Him, we are truly lost.

Forgiveness only becomes possible if we let the ugly poisoned thing out and have something to replace it. That unseen force must touch us. God must touch us or else we will never get what we need to mend a bleeding heart. Without the extra dimension of the Spirit, no one can truly forgive. Thus, forgiveness waits until people begin to pull out of the spiritual realm everything they need.

If we are extra sensitive types our hurts and bitterness will be even greater.
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Everything in me was initially so wounded and broken and bitter and hopeless and alone and full of remorse and full of sadness. I have had a bounty of brokenness in my life. I tell you that God has done miracles, yet every day is also another step towards the completion of an amazing miracle from God. There is nothing like the Holy Spirit coming and cleaning out the junk in you, and I want nothing less than the best. I'll not look to man anymore to give me the solution. I'm an American. I believe in "having it all."

I know now that I must not expect anything from man, but every new little hurt man might inflict threatens to raise hatred and anger and it is something difficult to relinquish and flush out of your life, but it's possible if you persevere.

We have to recognize that many situations we encounter are merely tests from God. He is just seeing what is in us, (or letting us see what is in us), seeing what we will do and letting us learn. Possibly, our revenge and un-forgiveness towards man is actually a fist up to God. God is whom we are truly angry at. We malign others with un-forgiveness because we are mad at God and do just what He hates. That is why so much gets done in the prayer closet. Go back to your little space and get it out with God and leave man out of the picture for the time being.

We can never know the heart of a person. That leaves us unable to judge. And none of us, in ourselves, truly hates sin. Let's face it. God is He who hates sin. We have vengeful feelings towards others for things we are also capable of.

When you have the grace to do certain things right, you cannot comprehend someone else who cannot do what you can. This usually leads to judging. I have been amazed at the conditions of some people's lives where, "there but for the grace" truly. A person of higher standards feels robbed more, hurt more and more disappointed. Un-forgiveness is likely to be that person's sin stronghold.

A person who is able to live by his own standards better than others will find it harder to comprehend why someone else cannot do the same, and will find it harder to forgive, easier to condemn. Usually, the one sin of the person of higher standards is self-righteous pride, but unfortunately, this sin is a bigger sin than a lot of others. It is one of the most deadly sins.

A person of higher standards may live isolated and alone and feel unloved. In this bastion of problems, un-forgiveness becomes a stronghold.

I don't believe that people are necessarily unwilling to look at their own pride in this situation, it is just that they have strong values and live by them, missing the one truth that can save them-that nothing they have has come from themselves.

1. Know that God tests to see if pride goes before other things
2. I must learn to see that I have been given grace from God!! It is not my righteousness!

3. Emptiness and loneliness happen when you stand apart and make a stand on something not shared by the group. It can make you very critical simply because you feel lonely and abandoned. The answer is to draw from the unseen friend, and wait for quality love relationships with humans. If we don't go to God in this we are in trouble.

4. The more one sees things as they ought to be the greater the pain in seeing things as they are. You must gain the grace of God to wait in patience for others to see what you do, and understand that they just can't for now. It requires walking in a kind of bubble with God whereby the sting of reality is taken away as you look towards the unseen God.

5. Everything goes back to our relationship with God. We get scared and question God when disappointment goes over our heads. Keep trusting.

6. When you are truly righteous and wise, you learn that you cannot possibly know or understand another person's life or heart enough to know how God sees them. Even Jeffrey Dahmer and "Hannibal the Cannibal" alias, David Berkowitz got saved as a result of being caught!! It was possible for the sins of the fathers to finally accumulate and result in an insane child who did not understand his own actions. God saved them. He considered two men who ate people and sodomized them and took off their skin, etc. people He wants to share eternity with!!! If he wants them, what can you know about how much he wants other wretched sinners who today aren't even close to His likeness?

7. God has no use for your self-sufficiency and condemns it!

8. Seeing one's values torn down and one's values being trashed by others becomes unbearable. It becomes so hard to say, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." At this point you must take on the mind of Christ to begin understanding that your own righteousness is a gift of God and not in the least owned by you. You must grasp the conformity to the one who "though in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself..."

10. I have anger and un-forgiveness towards others often when I see them degrading themselves and thus robbing everyone else of a good example of an elevated way of life. I hate to see human life being degraded and I get exasperated with it. I get sick of people being lazy and rebellious and foolish and destructive. They rob me of things I so long for. So, the people who are most likely to judge and find forgiveness difficult are the ones who had higher hopes for others as well as themselves. Doesn't that make sense?

I have always had such high standards for what this life should be; consequently, my criticism has been so much harsher. Martin Luther was mad at the Jews because he thought they would come to Christ by the multitudes after he helped them see truth, so I hear. So now, the anti-Semitism that got a stronghold in Germany has been traced back to Martin Luther, of all people! This is only according to a couple of sources and not proven.

11. What has us hung up is knowing some people truly sin without cause and will never repent. We never know if that's what we're dealing with and we (rightfully) want to despise that. But the problem is, we can never know if that's what we're dealing with and that's the point. God has set us in a mystery of not knowing a person's heart, at least not until we know them extremely well. That takes oodles of time. Sometimes even time leaves us in a mystery. People are a great mystery. Suddenly, many people do the unexpected. So few people allow us the luxury of transparency, and I love the ones who do, I must say!!

12. When we are hurt, if we are healthy we acknowledge that we do not know that person's heart or life, or why they have done this. We acknowledge that God is testing us, and we try to pass the test. I am learning to stop and remember that I am being tested. I am telling you that sometimes the test is so blatant and so ridiculous (I mean, things seem so hopelessly ridiculous) that I have to laugh at God as I realize--IT'S JUST A FRICKIN' TEST!

Here's an example of a test I've had from God: I can't find one single Christian man in my town, and finally, one day, a man at my job confesses that he is a Christian, and sure enough - he's the guy with the high-water pants and thick glasses, body odor and a very low IQ who has to have everything explained to him a hundred times. It's like, "come on God - you can do better than that, can't you? Why does everything look so hopeless?" And then, I just start laughing, cuz it's a test.

And then there's my computer printer. This story is true. All the sudden it doesn't emit jet ink even though I put in a dozen cartridges. I send my computer back to the dealer who sold it to me and order another one, which they promptly send. The new one does the same thing. The technician tries to work with me over the phone on what to do to make it work. We can't find a single answer. Then, they report that they received back the printer that wasn't working for me. "It works fine," they say. OK, God, very funny.

13. Un-forgiveness in you primarily comes from not being able to get what you need from God.

14. There are almost indelible patterns in us-people fall into treating us according to the given pattern. The patterns are like furrows that are dug fairly deep in a garden, and if you walk casually and effortlessly, you cannot help falling into them, but if you walk carefully and attempt to stay outside the furrows, it is possible, you just have to try a lot harder. Kind and loving people carefully step so they do not fall into treating people as they are used to being treated.

It takes strong people of major conviction to treat us differently than the patterns suggest. How do we get rid of the old patterns? We go to God and he heals the deep patterns and takes them away-no other way. Once he does, even dealing with weak people won't expose us any more to the relentless patterns-there's nothing left to fall into.

My cat "Bonita" seems to have suffered some things at the hands of people. She has always had reservations and stuff so you can tell. I have found myself treating her worse than my cat "Fred" simply because that's what she is used to. I find myself saying--"oh my Lord, what is wrong with me? I am hurting my little girl cat!" But it is still hard for me to resist treating her in a way she is used to. So it is with humans.

15. You must look at what was wrong, (what happened in your past) and acknowledge what it did to you. How can you understand your anger and the sad state of your life? How can you understand the things you have done or have been done to you unless you see what the wrong is?

When someone comes along to explain to you what has happened to you, and that reality for you has been enough to cause terrible hurts and difficulties in your life, this is one way to experience the love of God. It is love to your soul to have it explained. You understand that you have, indeed, mountains of difficulty, and you finally understand why you hurt so much.

16. Un-forgiveness causes you to resist even the "violin" experience. That's true bitterness, when you no longer want it even explained.

What can you say about the people who have given in to bitterness, so hurt and angry they cannot and will not care about others? They won't look at anyone else's pain, only their own. In fact, they inflict pain in the name of their own pain. They expect others to take responsibility for their needs and problems, not themselves. Psychology has a name for that- a "character disorder".

We all want to hate them-we want them to get their just due. But if you desire to "live Godly in Christ Jesus," you have to take another position.

We're all robbed. What do we pray? What do we say, what do we do? What do we say to that person? How do you cope with someone who wants no help?

17. You can't even depend on your loved one getting well. Once again, it's a case of having to let go of something that most people want in their natural minds, and it's a form of depending on man, to depend on that person getting well. Even your loved ones having the things you always hoped for is something you cannot depend on getting in your life, because although you can appropriate all things in your own life through faith, YOU CANNOT MAKE THE CHOICE OF FAITH FOR ANOTHER PERSON. It is one of the most difficult lessons in life.

You have to stop crying for them and expending all your energy at some point. You have to acknowledge that this person has signed away love, both giving and receiving it, and has chosen hopelessness and bitterness. That is something we cannot reward them for.

HOWEVER, God IS THEIR JUDGE. WE CAN NEVER JUDGE BECAUSE WE DON'T KNOW THE HEART. ONLY God DOES. SO WE DO NOT HAVE UNFORGIVENESS TOWARD THEM FOR DISAPPOINTING US, AND WE DO NOT CONDEMN THEM FOR WHAT APPEARS TO BE THEIR REBELLION AGAINST God.

18. I have found that once you know the conditions of a person's life, it is amazing the things that went into their weaknesses and problems. We must rejoice that we were given immense grace by God that we cannot comprehend or deserve, and that God does not give us license to despise those who apparently don't have this grace, since we DO NOT DESERVE IT, NOR DID WE EARN IT. Just be in awe, just be in thanksgiving! That's the most important response.

19. We pray, we hope, and we never give up for that person, but we go on. We hope for others to forgive that person who may be keeping him or her in bondage because of their un-forgiveness. We pray to release that person. But, we cannot judge those who haven't forgiven that person either. We have to refrain from holding them in debt, while we nevertheless pray.

20. When you are very, very hurt and no one says, "I'm sorry," you feel immobilized. You don't know how to begin to forgive because you MUST have that touch from God that makes it possible. You cannot wait for man to respond to you with an apology. Unfortunately, many people are too wounded in their relationship to God to reach beyond their pettiness in order to touch Him, in order to heal. We must acknowledge that establishing a relationship with God has been our privilege, and that it is a very hard thing to do! We have to see that many people have not been able to establish a healing bond with Him.

21. You can't start with nothing in order to forgive. It isn't fair to say that people have no excuse in their un-forgiveness. People are in holes, in traps. It's a 'Catch 22' when you find it hard to trust God because you have been hurt from the beginning of your life. You have to trust God before you can get above your situation, but how do you trust God until you get above it? The hurts in your life have caused you to question the love of God. The hurtful actions of man are what have damaged our relationship to God in the first place, yet it is imperative that we reach God in order to get beyond what man has done. The answer: God's miraculous grace. And I, as one who receives God's miraculous grace, hope to someday truly be a vessel, in human flesh, of that grace.

22. We humans are so absurd, each of us hurting and saying to the other (especially in marriage) "well, you don't love me, and you don't care for me!! I'm not going to do this or that until you first do this or that for me. I need love. I cannot love you without your love."

This is what we say to EACH OTHER! It is a pit, a dead end. It cannot go anywhere. Neither side has the resources to begin loving, but both sides are waiting for the other person to go first. The only progress in life is when that one person reaches up to God, by some miracle, and begins to draw from the higher source what is needed for one's own love hunger, and from there, loves another. It does not happen to a large majority of people! This is what Jesus meant when he said, "few there be that find it." I believe he was referring to abundant life.

Single people keep expecting betrayal from others. They're afraid, unsure, angry, hopeless and frustrated; always waiting for someone else to make the first move, always second guessing the other person. We do not live in a world that fosters trust!

The only way out: God LOVES YOU OR ME FIRST, AND THEN YOU OR I LOVE OTHERS. We take from the spiritual realm what we need in the natural. We do not go to man for our needs. He will inevitably come to us. Relationship is always sharing and always give and take with man. It is never meant to be just one or the other.

I LOOK UP TO God TO GET OUTSIDE MYSELF. I stop asking the pauper to pay the debt, who has no money, and I go to the King who is more than ready to pay the whole thing, who owes me NOTHING (!) God says, "I will pay that person's debt! Stop going to him or her! Stop that! I have all the money in the world! Stop that!"

People are weak. They are waiting for you to make the first move, to have the power, because they cannot make that move themselves.

23. Yes, some are purely evil and have no intention of changing. But you may never know who is hopelessly evil. You may not be sure of who is the evil one who will never repent and will perish (the seed of Satan).

24. Discipline is another subject to cover, that we do need to discipline others who do wrong. But you cannot be a disciplinarian until you have been made ready for the task, and you better be sure that you are in a position to do that!!

25. IT'S BETWEEN US AND God. WE HURT OTHERS IN ORDER TO HURT God!

RESPONSE TO JOHN ARNOTT'S BOOK:
REASONS WHY THE HURT FROM OTHERS MAY NOT BE COMING FROM YOUR OWN UNFORGIVENESS:

1. People hurt us because they cannot resist falling into the patterns which are engraved upon us from the way we have been treated. It takes a strong, supernatural person to get beyond the patterns. The way we have been treated invites people to treat us the same way and most people are weak enough to fall in. People fall in and they go ahead and hurt afresh the injured person. MIKE MURDOCH SAYS: "BULLIES LIKE TO BEAT UP WOUNDED PEOPLE."

2. A person can feel that there is deep hurt in someone else, but they truly cannot make up for what the other person has lost; they cannot go in and heal because it is beyond them. Chances are the hurt is so deep and horrible that an outside party would have to be God and play God in order to heal the wounded soul, however, they are not God and they cannot do it. So, in such a case, the outsider may just be or appear negligent, but actually feels helpless and cannot cope with the need they see.

3. People test us to see if we are going to get angry and bitter if they treat us bad, suspecting we have been mistreated before. People test us with the idea that if they see us fail again and get malicious and bitter, this is our fault and that they need not assume any responsibility for it. So, they test our ability to forgive.

4. Some just can't handle a sensitive person and see that a person is too sensitive they just want to get it over with: hurt that person because they'll have to end up hurting them anyway.

5. The flesh of man enjoys perpetuating the lust that bitterness produces either for material things or for sex, and enjoys perpetuating bitterness and hatred as well. Many people who have enough bitterness of their own like to go ahead and create a hotbed of malice and anger and bitterness in others.

6. It takes two to tango and many people reject us before we reject them.

I tried for an unbelievable number of years to go out into the world and start afresh with people, putting behind the past and hoping for love and friendship and respect, and still got shot down time and again. I felt that I was being tested and that people still wanted to perpetuate hurt even though I was beckoning for something else. I realize that I did harbor bitterness where I didn't realize it before, and that people were testing me also to see if I could forgive, or if I'd respond to hurt with un-forgiveness. I always failed the test because I could never understand why there would come hostility when I sought reconciliation and it was so discouraging I would just want to give up. I didn't know how to go to God and say: "the debt is yours, not theirs-you pay me and I'll forget their debt."

...end of response to John's book.


How we should think and pray when others hurt or malign us, or hurt others, or just disappoint us in major ways?:

PRAYER OF FORGIVENESS

"I do not know the heart. God knows the heart. I am a sinner too and I cannot love or hate sin any better than anyone else except by the grace of God, so I cannot exalt myself above anyone else. I don't understand this person's attitude or behavior, but I cannot see all the details, or claim to know the mysteries of every human heart. I forgive this person the debt he or she owes me for robbing me or another person, or for inflicting wounds that have no just reason or cause, and I trust God to repay me for the debt another owes-God who has the means to repay the debt, while this person may not have the grace to do so. I look to God to refresh my soul and make it up to me for what has been lost or destroyed.

I look to God to befriend and help me, to heal my soul of its wounds and to give me love that surpasses all knowledge and understanding. I wait for God to bring new souls into my life who have wisdom and power to go beyond human failings and petty conflicts, and understand that all those who come into my life before the right people do are there to test me, to see if I will forgive and trust God. Since there is a curse on those who trust man and not God, I make every effort not to bring this curse upon myself, by acknowledging that I look to God for every need in my life, and stop expecting man to provide for me the things my deepest soul needs.

I love others as God gives me the grace to do so. If I cannot love enough now, I'll also look to God to understand that my weaknesses and imperfections are preventing me, but look forward to the day when I will truly walk in newness of life, with the renewed inner man operating in all facets of my life, and when supernatural love from God will be able to flow.

I acknowledge that man is weak, and that someone has to make the first move in human relationships, and it might as well be me (or should I say, I probably got stuck with the job!)"




WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU NEED TO FORGIVE

1. RECOGNIZE THAT GOD DID NOT, IN HIS PERFECT DESIGN, INFLICT THIS PAIN UPON YOU. GOD LOVES YOU. MAN 'S FLESH AND THE DEVIL BRINGS EVIL.

2. FIND HIS LOVE, SO YOU HAVE POWER TO FORGIVE. YOU CAN'T DO IT IN YOUR OWN STRENGTH.

3. ASK HIM TO SHOW YOU UN-FORGIVENESS and keep repenting.

4. ASK HIM TO MELT THE HEART OF STONE, AND KEEP ASKING.

5, FIND THE POWER OF YOUR CONFESSIONS....

"God is at work in me to will and to do of His good pleasure."
"I have the mind of Christ..."
" I am the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ."
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
"The love of God is shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit."

FINAL

There is the forgiveness we grant to those who ask for forgiveness, that is, the forgiveness we show them. For all those who never ask, God requires that we forgive them in our heart, but we have to have a wise strategy for those who require that we take more and more suffering than already given. Forgiveness is not allowing them to continue, to do more damage. We should make them accountable and bring an end to the evil being committed. Did we see fit to forgive Hitler, by letting him continue? Would that have solved it?

We cannot, however, stand against our enemies unless we examine ourselves and repent of our own sins.