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Real Forgiveness Is Grief Work

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We can unknowingly do tremendous damage by guilting ourselves (or other people) into forgiving too soon. What?!? The Bible commands us to forgive! Yes, it does. I completely believe in the power of forgiveness, no argument there. But it has to be real forgiveness, not cheap forgiveness.

Forgiveness is one of the most misunderstood topics today, both by our culture and by the Church. Real forgiveness is not an event. It’s not something we did at 3:07 PM last Tuesday. In fact, it’s not something we do at all. It is a process we walk through.

Cheap forgiveness is worse than none. Because we think we’ve forgiven, but we really haven’t. So we unknowingly live in unforgiveness, with all its negative consequences.

10 Things Forgiveness Is Not

Sometimes it’s easier to understand what something is by understanding what it’s not. Here are ten things forgiveness is not that people often mistake for forgiveness.

Forgiveness is NOT:

  1. Pretending nothing happened.
  2. Covering for the other person.
  3. Trusting someone who should not be trusted.
  4. Giving a perpetrator access so they can do it again.
  5. Lacking healthy boundaries.
  6. Letting a criminal go free.
  7. Avoiding conflict.
  8. Pretending to agree with the other person when you really don’t.
  9. Feeling happy about something bad that happened.
  10. An emotion or a feeling at all.

Forgiveness and Healing Are Two Different Things

Say we go to the gun range together. I’m handling my weapon carelessly, and I accidentally shoot you in the shoulder. You can forgive me instantly, but a gunshot wound takes time to heal.

Suppose I see you the next day after you’re released from the hospital. I slap you on the shoulder, “Hey, how are you doing? Great to see you! Sorry again about yesterday.”

“Ouch!” you respond, because I slapped your shoulder right on the wound. “That hurts!”

“Why are you still hurting? Haven’t you forgiven me?” I ask indignantly. “What’s wrong with you? You’re not a very good Christian! You’re being very unforgiving.”

But forgiveness has nothing to do with it! You forgave me on the way to the hospital, but you still have the wound. There’s nothing wrong with you; it’s normal for you to hurt again if I slap the wound. My refusal to acknowledge the reality of the wound I’ve given you is really a sign of my own spiritual immaturity and lack of repentance.

Forgiveness just means we don’t hold anything against the person;
it doesn’t mean we’re instantly healed from the wounding they caused.

7 Things Forgiveness Is

So how do we walk through real forgiveness? What is real forgiveness anyway?

Forgiveness is:

  1. An act of the will (not an emotion).
  2. A process that takes time.
  3. A decision to begin that process.
  4. Releasing what we hold against the other person.
  5. Canceling the bill they owe us.
  6. Grieving the loss caused by the sin against us.
  7. Coming to the place where the other person is not defined by the evil they did to us.

Forgiveness Is a Process, Not an Event.

The sin against a person is a loss in that person’s life. Forgiveness is the process of grieving that loss. The process of forgiveness parallels the process of grief with its five phases:

  • Denial
  • Anger
  • Bargaining
  • Depression or Sadness
  • Acceptance

These phases aren’t numbered because they don’t necessarily go in order, and they often repeat. They are all healthy and necessary for a season. The trick is not to get stuck in one of them for too long. How long is “too long”? There’s no formula; it subjectively depends on the situation and the person doing the grieving.

Forgiveness works the same way because real forgiveness is grieving a loss. Maybe of innocence. Maybe of dreams. Maybe of trust. Maybe of a relationship that wasn’t what we thought it was. Maybe we came to the painful realization that a relationship will never be the good thing it could be because the other person refuses to do their own work.

Real forgiveness is grieving a loss.

The thing is, to truly forgive, we have to grieve the loss. It’s a process, not an event.

No one walks up to a widow after her husband’s funeral and says, “Well, that was a great service. I’m so glad for you that you’re done grieving now.”

We all understand that grieving is a process, not an event. We all understand that the widow’s grieving process is just beginning, and we’d expect it to take years. We’d expect her to bounce between days like these:

  • “I can’t believe he’s really gone.”
  • “I’m angry that he’s gone. It’s just not fair.”
  • “I’m sad that he’s gone. I miss him so much my heart is breaking.”
  • “Today was a good day.”

Her friends aren’t concerned if she has an angry day or a depressed week, or if they see her in any of the other phases of grief. They become concerned, however, if she is stuck in one of the phases for months or years on end. Going through the phases of grief is not a problem. Getting stuck in one of them is.

Forgiveness is the same way. “I said a prayer of forgiveness for that person who abused me. I’m glad that’s over and done with.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Forgiveness is a process, not an event. Going through the phases of forgiveness is not a problem. Getting stuck in one of them is.

While the widow’s friends would understand her needing more alone time than usual, they’d rightfully worry if she pulled away from them completely.

Wise friends let the widow know they respect her process. They let her know they can be as close or as far as she needs them to be on any given day. They’re ok with giving her space or being with her.

And they don’t try to push her through the other phases of grief before she’s ready. It has to be on her timeline, or she won’t receive the healing her heart needs from the grieving process.

We can walk with wounded people (or ourselves) through the phases of forgiveness the same way.

The best way to help someone forgive is to walk with them through grieving the loss.
Because real forgiveness is grief work.

Your Turn

Does this resonate? Are you struggling with forgiveness? Has someone in the church guilted you into cheap forgiveness? What impacted you in this post? Tell us your story in the comments. And please share if this post would bless someone else.

BTW, This Post Is From…

… excerpts of chapters 6 and 7 my book Stewarding Wounded Hearts.

Check it out here.

A Christian’s Super Power: Forgiveness

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There’s one quality of Christianity, a central feature actually, that other world religions just don’t have. And the world lacks completely. In fact, being able to do this one thing separates Christians from the rest of the world. That thing is Forgiveness.

Being raised in a (mostly) Christian culture, at least one founded on Christian principles, in the West we all know unforgiveness is bad. We all know we’re supposed to forgive people. Forgiveness is the true triumph of love over evil.

Still, the enemy can trick us into unforgiveness so easily because we really don’t know what forgiveness is. So what really is forgiveness anyway? Sometimes it’s easier to understand what something is by understanding what it’s not. Here’s some things forgiveness is not that people often mistake for forgiveness.

Forgiveness is NOT…

  • … pretending nothing happened.
  • … covering for the other person.
  • … trusting someone who should not be trusted.
  • … giving a perpetrator access so they can do it again.
  • … not having healthy boundaries.
  • … letting a criminal go free.
  • … avoiding conflict.
  • … pretending to agree with the other person when you really don’t.
  • … feeling happy about something bad that happened.
  • … an emotion or a feeling at all.

We often hear, “I can’t forgive that person, they’ll do it again.” Our unforgiveness is not the thing preventing them from doing it again. That’s on them. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you can’t have healthy boundaries. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to place yourself at risk with an unhealthy person.

Most people are familiar with the 5 stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Depression, Bargaining, and Acceptance. The stages of forgiveness are basically the same, because the evil done to you often represents a loss to your person. You need to fully grieve the loss to fully forgive the other person.

Just like grieving, forgiveness is a process. No one walks up to a widow after her husband’s funeral and says, “Well, that was a great service. I’m so glad for you that you’re done with grieving now.” Pretty much anyone within earshot would smack that person! Because we understand that grieving is a process, not an event. We all get that her grieving process is just beginning, and we’d all expect it to take at least a year, if not longer. We’d all expect her to bounce between days like these:

  • “I can’t believe he’s really gone.”
  • “I’m angry that he’s gone. It’s not fair.”
  • “I’m sad that he’s gone. I miss him so much my heart is breaking.”
  • “Today was a good day.”

Her friends aren’t concerned if she has an angry day or a depressed week, or if they see her in any of the other stages of grief. They get concerned if she gets stuck in one of the stages for months or years on end. Going through the stages is not a problem. Getting stuck in one of them is.

Forgiveness is the same way. “I said a prayer of forgiveness for that person who abused me. I’m glad that’s over and done with.” No, it doesn’t work that way. Forgiveness is a process, not an event. Going through the stages is not a problem. Getting stuck in one of them is.

We see people stuck in denial all the time. You can tell, because they minimize the sin against them, and make excuses for the other person. “It wasn’t so bad” or “they didn’t mean it” or “they were going through a really hard time.” I’m not talking about things people do accidently. I’m talking about the big stuff. I’m talking about when, yes, it was that bad, and yes, they did mean it.

Covering for the other person is not forgiveness. Lying about how bad it was is not forgiveness. It’s actually dishonoring to the other person to lie about their behavior. You’re keeping them from the help they might otherwise receive. Although it can appear to be honoring, lies never bring honor, because they allow evil to continue unchecked in the other person. And that’s not love.

Minimizing the other person’s sin against you is actually unforgiveness. It’s pretending the wrong wasn’t wrong, and so it keeps you from forgiving them. If “it wasn’t so bad” then there’s nothing to forgive, is there? By pretending it’s ok, when it was far from ok, we actually live in unforgiveness.

Another common thing we hear is, “I can’t forgive them, I’m still angry about it.” Good! Actually, being angry about the evil done to you is a healthy part of forgiveness. Again, you can’t forgive what you don’t acknowledge as a wrong. If something heinous was done to you, you should be angry about it. Forgiveness is not an emotion, but an act of the will. You can be angry and still forgiving at the same time.

And yes, you can set healthy boundaries so you’re not wounded by the same person again. In a relationship, we are trusting the other person to protect our heart. If they refuse to protect our heart, and instead betray and abuse our heart, we can set boundaries to protect our heart. Boundaries are a pullback from intimacy. Sometimes they can be temporary, sometimes permanent. It depends if the other person is willing to do their work in the relationship.

So what is forgiveness?

Forgiveness IS…

  • … an act of the will.
  • … a decision.
  • … a process.
  • … releasing what we hold against the other person.
  • … canceling the bill they owe us.
  • … coming to the place where the person is not the evil they did to us.

This is tough stuff. We need help. While the widow’s friends would understand her needing more alone time than usual, they’d rightfully worry if she pulled away from them completely. Find a trusted friend, pastor, spouse—someone to walk through it with you. And a word of wisdom, if you’re working through forgiveness around marriage or relationship issues, find someone of your same sex. Don’t set yourself up for an affair. That won’t help.

We know we’ve finished forgiveness when we can truly pray blessing over the other person without inwardly cringing. Releasing them from what they owe us and praying blessing over them is the beginning of a new life and freedom for us. We actually release ourselves from the prison we made for them.

How about you? Do you have a story of forgiveness, either forgiving or being forgiven? Are you struggling through this right now? We’d love to hear from you and walk alongside you through this journey. Please leave a comment or shoot us an email on the Contact Us page. And please share if this would bless someone else.

How to Unlearn the Church’s Worst Habit

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Loving Jesus, I love God’s people. I love the church. This is not a church bashing post. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of that going around. It’s always easier to attack someone else’s faults than deal with our own, and sometimes the church is an easy target.

So while I love the church, there’s something we need to talk about. Can we have a family meeting? The church has a nasty habit we need to unlearn.

We all say we want the church to be a safe place, a strong tower people can run to in the midst of their brokenness. A safe place for people to repent and come to Jesus. A safe place to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). But is the church a safe place for people to make mistakes?

The church’s worst habit is throwing out everything someone has ever said or done, or will say or do in the future, because of one mistake. Let’s look at a current example.

Cancel Culture Christianity

Many voices have recently given prophetic words about the recent presidential election in the United States that don’t appear to be happening. And many in the church are verbally shooting them for it. Regardless of what side of the political spectrum you’re on, that’s not ok.

The pagans do this. It’s called Cancel Culture. A celebrity makes an insensitive tweet, and they get fired from their sitcom. Their concert gets cancelled. Their speaking gigs get canceled. “They made a mistake! How dare they! Off with their head!” This just makes everyone live in fear. But the church is called to freedom. We need to stop “cancel culturing” our prophetic voices if they make a mistake.

Do we realize how much courage it takes to put yourself out there and give a prophetic word? To share with others, especially on the dangerous Internet, what you think God is showing you? Do you know how embarrassing it is to share, “I think God is telling me this,” and have it not happen? Prophetic voices are taking a huge risk! Courage and vulnerability are godly qualities we should be encouraging.

Yes, we also want to encourage accuracy. So what do we do with prophetic words that don’t happen?

(1) Let it play out without judgement. For the current prophecies about the election, although at the time of this writing it’s looking bleak for some prophetic words, the jury’s still out. Anything can happen over the next month or two. Wait until it’s an absolute impossibility before judging. (Please don’t get hung up or triggered on politics; this is not a political post. That’s just an example.)

People who don’t believe in prophecy jump on the bandwagon whenever a prophecy goes awry. “See, I knew it all the time! I knew they were a false prophet, that all this prophetic stuff was hogwash” This negative pre-judgement reveals more about the person judging than the person who missed the prophetic word.

God doesn’t wait for us to make a mistake so he can say, “See, I knew it all the time!” So let’s stop treating each other like that.

(2) Don’t reject the person as a false prophet. I’m talking about people rooted in Jesus, loving Jesus, who just missed it. I’m not talking about people who encourage others to sin, or condone immoral lifestyles that break God’s heart. Those are the “false prophets” the Old Testament has strong admonitions for.

Here are some true prophets in the Bible who actually missed it. (Taken from a great Intercessors for America article, here.)

  • Nathan. David wants to build the Lord’s temple, and Nathan wrongly tells him to go for it. The Lord later sends Nathan back to David with a correction; Solomon is to build the temple, not David. (2 Samuel 7:1-13)
  • Agabus. He bound his own hands with Paul’s belt, and told Paul, “In this way the Jews will bind the owner of this belt” (Acts 21:10-11). Although Paul was bound, it was by the Romans not the Jews (Acts 21:33). Agabus got it mostly right, but missed a detail. Prophetic voices today do the same thing. That does not make them false prophets any more than it did Agabus.

(3) Consider the conditions. Now, yes, sometimes people add conditions after-the-fact as a way to blame shift when they miss it, and that hurts their credibility. But sometimes prophetic words come with legitimate conditions. If we as the people of God respond in a certain way, often repentance, then God will do something. We shouldn’t discount the prophetic word if we didn’t fulfill the conditions.

(4) Consider the timing. Also consider the timing. Joseph and David were both given prophesies decades before they were fulfilled. Maybe the person giving the prophetic word wasn’t wrong. Maybe they were just early.

(5) Be teachable and admit mistakes. On the prophetic side, we need to admit it when we miss it. I know getting tarred & feathered by the rest of the church can make this difficult and scary. It’s embarrassing. But it’s the right thing to do. It’s ok to say, “I don’t know what happened. I thought it was God, but I guess I missed it.”

And to the rest of the church, enough with the witch hunts already! Put down your pitchforks, and let’s encourage people genuinely trying to hear God, like we all should be, to try again.

Mistakes are not sin. Mistakes are learning.

Recently, Kris Vallotton from Bethel apologized for a prophetic word he believes he missed. That took a lot of guts and humility! Regardless of whether you believe in modern-day prophecy or not, regardless of what you think of Bethel, we should commend him for this. Rather than saying, “See, I knew it all the time!” we should commend him for having the humility to admit what he believes was a mistake.

Fallen Christian Leaders

Recently, some high-profile Christian leaders have walked away from Christianity. What do we do with that? Don’t throw out every book or song they’ve ever written. It doesn’t mean nothing they ever did was anointed by the Holy Spirit. It means Satan is having a field day in their lives right now. Pray for them, don’t gloat over them. “See, I knew it all the time!” Don’t do that.

I went to a church for a long time where the pastor had an affair. Anyone who knows me knows how strongly I feel about sexual purity. I wrote a book on it. But I learned about the Holy Spirit in that church. I learned how to worship there. I got so much from his teaching and grew so much in that church.

That pastor’s sin does not invalidate the good God did in my life through him and his ministry. We need to realize the calling of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in someone’s life is greater than their mistakes, even greater than their sin.

Yes, we should call out mistakes, especially public ones that could harm others and lead them astray. But let’s stop throwing out everything someone has ever done or said, past, present, and future, because they made a mistake. Or even sinned. God doesn’t treat us that way. Let’s stop doing it to each other.

Your Turn

So what do you think? Please share your thoughts and story in the comments. And please share this post to bless others.

White Repentance: How Not to Miss a Daniel 9 Holy Moment

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We are in a holy moment. It’s one of those times when heaven bends near to earth. If we don’t miss it, our actions now can affect great change on the earth.

A Daniel 9 Moment

Daniel 9 is one of the most mind-blowing chapters in the Bible. Because they abandoned the Lord, the people of Judah had been conquered and hauled off to Babylon. Daniel was a righteous man. He had nothing to do with the sin of his nation.

Daniel 9 is a beautiful prayer, where Daniel repents on behalf of his nation. Even though he personally had nothing to do with it, he owns his country’s sin, even from past generations, as his own. And he repents for them. There’s a spiritual Kingdom principle on display here—the righteous repenting for the unrighteous.

Repenting for Generational Sins

We talk about this all the time in inner healing. Often, the sins of our ancestors manifest bad fruit in our lives. We often see patterns in families, conditions or events happening generation after generation. For example, the first male infant dying. The onset of mental illness in adults in their 40s. A particular kind of abuse. Every adult male dying of a heart attack in their early 50s.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that every heart attack is a sign of generational sin. But if every adult male for the last five generations has died of a heart attack between ages 50-55, there’s something generational going on. Now these are extreme examples, but it’s very common in inner healing to go back through your family line and look for obvious patterns.

The good news is the blood of Jesus is stronger. We can repent for the sins of our ancestors and break judgements and curses off our family line. And it’s not just possible in families. Daniel 9 is an example of one righteous man repenting for the sin of his whole nation. We can do this for our family, our nation, and our race.

White Racism in America

Rebellion is usually a bad and ungodly thing. So in the 1770s when the 13 American Colonies decided to rebel against England and form their own country, Thomas Jefferson was charged with writing a document that intellectually defended why rebellion was actually the moral thing to do in this case.

While writing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson couldn’t justify the Colonies’ right to be free, without also justifying their slaves’ right to be free. He couldn’t reconcile freeing the Colonies from tyranny and establishing a free people while enslaving a people within our own borders. So he wrote the abolition of slavery into the original draft.

That sparked a heated debate in the Continental Congress. It was a non-starter for the Southern states. The Northern states knew, if they were going to pull off this Revolution thing at all, that all 13 colonies had to be united. So they capitulated and dropped that clause out of Jefferson’s Declaration. (NOTE: I am not justifying their decision; just relaying what happened.)

With that fateful decision, by refusing to abolish slavery, the founding fathers baked racism into the country they founded, into the very fabric of this new nation. They tabled that decision, deferring to fight that battle another day.

Please don’t get me wrong. This is the best country on the planet and America has blessed the world. People are fighting to get here. But I think that decision had consequences, unintended by those who opposed slavery at the time, but none the less. Allowing that spiritual stronghold to remain at the founding of the nation did us no favors.

So fight that battle another day we did. Less than 100 years later, the Civil War became the bloodiest devastation this nation has ever seen, before or since. In his second inaugural address, President Lincoln correctly discerned the heavenly justice being wrought upon his country by that terrible war.

“….  all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword…” – President Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address

Lincoln correctly discerned Heaven’s judgement: Every dollar made through free and stolen slave labor was repaid by the economic devastation of war. Every drop of slave blood taken by the whip was repaid on the battlefield by the musket ball and the bayonet.

Yet after slavery officially ended, even after that terrible war, racism persists, even to this day. Spiritual strongholds die hard.

Our Chance

So now we find ourselves, I believe, in a holy moment. We have a unique opportunity.

To my white brothers and sisters: We have a unique opportunity to listen. It’s a rare gift. We have an opportunity to make our black brothers and sisters feel heard. They have felt unheard and invisible for far too long. Although we weren’t even alive during slavery, it’s our generation’s responsibility to hear the pain our brothers and sisters feel today because of the enduring effects of racism.

We have an opportunity, I believe a heavenly window, to repent for the generational sins of our white race. But Dave, I had nothing to do with it! I treat everyone the same! I abhor racism! Yeah, I know. So do I. I don’t practice racism either. And I know we are all just as shocked by the police brutality we’ve witnessed.

Daniel didn’t have anything to do with the sins of his people that led them into captivity in Babylon. Yet he repented for those sins, as if they were his own. And heaven heard. We can do the same thing.

In this holy moment, we have the opportunity to end racism in this country once and for all. I know change doesn’t happen overnight, but we can, in this moment, commit to see it through.

Call to Action

Will you, as a white Christian, join me in repenting for the sins of our race? Go into your prayer closet and cry out to the Living God in repentance, like Daniel did.

Will you take this pledge with me?

I will speak up and not be silent when I hear it from others.
I will film and post injustice when I witness it.
I will get involved, and willingly pay the price for doing so.
In as much as it depends on me, I will not tolerate the existence of racism.

To my black brothers and sisters: Please forgive us. Forgive my people for our shameful and sinful treatment of you. Forgive us for not hearing your pain, and so often blaming you for it. Forgive us for looking the other way. No more. Although there will be pockets of hatred in all races until Jesus returns, please know that the vast majority of whites are just as horrified by the death of George Floyd as you are. I pray in the wake of this that police reform sweeps the country. And I pray that you feel seen and heard. You deserve to be. #BlackLivesMatter.

Your Turn

We’d love to hear your story, questions, and respectful dialog in the comments. And please share if this post would bless others.

Why You Can’t Forgive until You’ve Gotten Angry

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As we teach and write about Christian identity, we find one of the biggest obstacles to really finding and walking in our true identity is forgiveness. Nothing will derail the calling on your life more than unforgiveness. Yet, we find many Christians don’t really understand forgiveness. There’s a key ingredient to forgiveness that’s counter-intuitive, that you wouldn’t expect. Anger. You can’t forgive until you’ve been angry.

Now, we’re talking about the really bad stuff here. I not talking about somebody cutting you off in traffic or taking your parking space. Hopefully we can forgive petty things without needing to get angry. But to forgive the big stuff – abuse, abandonment, rejection, neglect, manipulation, betrayal, rape, coercion into an abortion – you have to get angry first. For a season.

Forgiveness is a process, not an event. “Oh yeah, I forgave him last Tuesday at 4:00.” It doesn’t work like that. For really bad stuff, it takes months or even years to completely forgive someone who’s done heinous evil to you. And it goes in cycles. You think you’ve forgiven, and then something triggers that old resentment to rise back up. That’s actually the Holy Spirit prompting you to take another journey through the process of forgiveness. If you submit to the process, it’ll go deeper this time, bringing you a greater level of healing and freedom.

The process of forgiveness parallels the process of grief. You may have seen the 5 stages of grief:

  • Denial
  • Anger
  • Bargaining
  • Depression (sadness)
  • Acceptance

These stages aren’t numbered because they don’t necessarily go in order and often repeat. They are all healthy and necessary. For a season. The trick is not to get stuck in one of them.

Forgiveness works the same way because you’re grieving a loss. Maybe of innocence. Maybe of trust. Maybe of a relationship that wasn’t what you thought it was. Maybe of dreams.

The thing is, to truly forgive, you have to be angry first. For a season.

Although as humans we’ve perfected getting it wrong into an art form, anger is actually a good thing. The truth is God made anger. He gave us the potential for that emotion. And used correctly, it’s a good and necessary thing. Anger is the godly response to injustice. Now, what we consider unjust displays our maturity, but we should be angry over true injustice. That’s not wrong. It’s godly.

If someone has committed a serious injustice against you, you should be angry. In fact, you can’t come to a place of forgiveness unless you get angry. It’s part of the forgiveness process. Here’s why.

You can’t forgive something that’s not sin; there’s no reason to. “It wasn’t that bad.” Unless we get angry to the level corresponding to the heinousness of the sin, we’re minimizing the sin against us. If you were raped, abused, lied to, manipulated, coerced, don’t minimize the sin against you. It was really bad. If you’re not angry, you’re forgiving the wrong sin. You’re not forgiving the real sin against you. You’re forgiving some other sin that wasn’t that bad.

It’s important to acknowledge the full extent of the sin against you. And that should make you angry. It’s only from that place that you can bring your anger to the cross and let it all out. Let Jesus have it. It’s only by acknowledging how much the person owes you that can forgive, coming to the place where they don’t owe you anything. It’s only by acknowledging the debt that you can forgive the debt.

We don’t want to get stuck in anger. Some people do and their unforgiveness tears them up. But it’s important to be angry for a season. Unload on God. He can take it. He wants it. When you yell and scream to God and let all that anger out to him, it goes straight to the cross. And it stays there. He gives you healing in its place. And you can then, from that place, forgive. Which sets you free.

So how about it? Have you gotten angry over the sin against you? Or are you minimizing it? What are you learning? Where are you in your journey of forgiveness? Tell us your story in the comments, and please share if it would bless someone else.

Why You Don’t Want to Be the Good Guy

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You don’t want to be the good guy in interpersonal relationships. It’s counter-intuitive, but you really don’t. What?!? Are you saying I should be the bad guy? No, of course not. In the world’s scarcity mindset we fall into so easily and often, those are the only two options. But in the Kingdom, there’s another choice.

The problem with being the good guy is there has to be a bad guy. When I was about 10, I remember overhearing my dad talking to one of his sisters about their mom. My aunt was upset because my grandmother was seemingly irrationally angry with her. My dad reassured her, “Don’t worry, it’s not you. You know how it is with Mom. Somebody’s always the villain. This week it’s you, next week it’ll be somebody else.” He was one of 8 children on a poor cotton farm in Oklahoma. It was a hard life. There were plenty of potential villains.

Life is hard. There are plenty of potential villains to blame. And plenty of real ones. People often do mean and hurtful things. Sometimes unknowingly, but sometimes on purpose. Bad guys abound. But don’t be the good guy.

The thing that trips us up isn’t the evil done to us. It’s our evil response to it. Yes, the evil done to us is horrible. I’m not minimizing that. But it has no power over us, only over our circumstances. What has power over us is our own response.

Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor who went on to become one of the 20th century’s most famous neurologists, said this:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor Frankl

The problem with sitting in the good guy chair is it forces someone else into the bad guy chair. There can’t be a good guy without a bad guy.

But they are the bad guy! Just look at what they did! Look at what they’re doing! Our American society has perfected this into an art form. We categorize everyone into good guys we agree with and bad guys we’re offended by. And our offense justifies all of our wicked, shameful, ungodly memes and treatment of those people we disagree with. We’ve matured as a prejudiced society. We’re not as prejudiced against skin color or ethnicity as much as we’re prejudiced against ideas. Hell couldn’t be more proud.

Do you see it? Do you see the error? Do you see the worldly thinking? They’re doing something bad, so they’re the bad guy! No. We are not what we do. God doesn’t see us like that. He sees us through the lens of who he created us to be, not through the lens of our behavior. Jesus died to make that possible.

God did not see Moses as a hot-tempered murderer, but as an iconic deliverer (see Exodus 2:11-12 and Exodus 3-4).

God did not see Gideon as a hiding coward, but as a mighty man of valor (see Judges 6:11-16).

God did not see Paul as the chief of sinners, a persecutor of the church, but as His personally chosen instrument to bring the gospel to the Gentiles (see Acts 8:1-3, Acts 9:1-15, and 1 Timothy 1:15-16).

God does not see the wicked people in our life through the lens of the wickedness they do. If we believe this Christian life is truly learning to be more and more like Jesus, then we need to learn to see people like he does. And we do that by letting them out of the bad guy chair.

The problem with putting people who hurt us in the bad guy chair is it puts us in the good guy chair. And we really do look good, sitting pretty in that good guy chair. It feels so justified. But there’s a problem. There’s a catch. The good guy chair has another name. A secret, hidden name. The victim chair. And you don’t want to sit there.

So here’s the deal. The only way out of the victim chair is by letting the other person out of the bad guy chair. And there’s only one way to do that. Forgiveness. I wrote a whole post on forgiveness here with two great lists – what it is and what it isn’t.

But suffice it to say here that forgiveness does not mean a lack of accountability, healthy boundaries, or consequences. If someone’s committed a crime against you, unless the Holy Spirit tells you differently, you have a spiritual responsibility to press charges in order to prevent future victims. And bringing that accountability also invites the person to deal with their own actions, and hopefully get healing for the root wounding that’s causing them.

God does not give us a bye on behavior. For example, although God saw Paul as his chosen instrument to bring the gospel to the Gentiles, when he appeared to Paul (then Saul), he said, “Why do you persecute me?” Jesus is like, “I want relationship with you. Here’s the awesomeness I’ve created you to be. But this stuff, your current behavior, acting out of the lies you believe, is in the way. Let’s deal with it together. Let me replace those foundational lies with my truth.” Jesus dealt with Paul’s stuff.

We are totally supposed to judge behavior as good or bad (see James 2:11, 1 Corinthians 5). But we are not supposed to judge people as good or bad (Matthew 7:1-2). That’s up to God alone. He doesn’t even trust the angels with that one (see Matthew 13:24-30).

So how do you forgive someone who’s done horrible wrong to you and is unrepentant? I had someone do something that was devastating to my family. We still are living in the fallout, and probably will for many years, if not permanently. This person is, as far as I know, unrepentant. I’ve never received an apology, let alone any attempt at restitution, and probably never will. My (fortunately few) dealings with them often display the same issues in this person’s life.

I had real trouble forgiving this person. Yes, I tried, I prayed the prayers and said the words. I wanted to forgive. But my heart was angry at the injustice of it all. So I got help. I got some inner healing prayer ministry. While the prayer minister was praying for me, I had a vivid vision of Jesus hanging on the cross. He asked me, “Have I hung here long enough to pay you back for the evil this person did to you? Or do you want me to hang here a little longer?” No condemnation in his voice, just an honest question.

I was undone. The dam burst and the tears could not be contained. I wept openly, letting all that pain of all that injustice go to Him on that cross. I’d always understood Jesus died for my sins against others and against him. But I’d never thought that he suffered and died for others sins against me. I answered him in my thoughts, “No Jesus, you don’t have to hang there any longer. It’s enough. What you’ve already done is enough.” And in that moment, really for the first time, I was able to forgive that person. I was able to release that person from what they owed me. The pain in my life they caused. The pain in my family’s life. The lack of even a simple apology. I don’t need it anymore. Jesus paid it all.

This whole good buy/bad guy thing really goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. This was the original choice we were given then and are still given every single day in every single situation and circumstance. The choice between the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. The choice to categorize people into good guys and bad guys, or to offer Jesus’ life to everyone, EVERYONE, independent of their actions.

So that’s my challenge to us today. Certainly don’t be the bad guy, but don’t be the good guy either. Be the Life Guy. Offer life to a sick, dying and hurting world, as you shine like stars in the heavens (see Philippians 2:15).

How about you? Have you let someone out of the bad guy chair? What difference did it make in your life? Has someone let you out of the bad guy chair? How did that change the relationship? Tell us in the comments. Your story will help others. And please share on social media (convenience buttons below) if you think this would help someone else.

I learned the concepts in this post, especially the good guy and bad guy chairs, from Rev. Jean Trainer of Dominion Counseling and Training Center, in Richmond, VA. Well worth a visit if you’re in the area. You’ll be glad you went.

The Power of Dropping Offenses

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They could not have been more different. When Jack said “black,” John said “white.” When John said “black,” Jack said “white.” One drove a smart car, the other a hummer. One was rightly concerned about social justice, the other rightly concerned about government over-reach and losing freedoms. One loved the Washington Redskins, the other the Dallas Cowboys. What was God thinking when he brought these two men to the same church, working on the same committees? They both thought the other was really jacked up. They both passionately knew they were right in their convictions. They were both willing to die on their swords over being right. They could not have been more the same.

They were both offended. Offense is one of the greatest barriers to friendship in the church. Actually, offense is one of the greatest barriers to godliness in any sphere of life. For example, there is a huge Spirit of Offense operating in both political parties in America right now, playing us for fools against each other. But that’s another story. This story is about two men in the same church who can barely stand each other, offended, not over anything righteous like God would be, but over their own petty preferences, that only they valued so highly.

Whenever they got excited about something at church, darned if the other would show up too, and work on that same project. The other person sucked all the joy out of it for them, because they both chose to give the other that power over them. In fact, they ended up bumping into each other so often that they began to wonder what in heaven was going on. In fact, something in heaven was going on. Heaven had a plan.

God knew that one of these men was molested as a child by a family member they were taught they must respect. God knew the other had parents who demanded silent perfection. Neither had a voice growing up, and the pain of being treated as an object had traumatized them both. To one, something horribly bad had happened, and it shut down his heart. To the other, the daily lack of love, the daily lack of the necessary good thing, had slowly but surely sucked the life out of his heart. God knew these two stony hearts desperately needed each other.

Both marriages were about to collapse. Their wives were miserable, and neither of their wives respected them. One man was a servant with no boundaries, and his wife longed for him to stand up to her and lead. The other was oppressively over-bearing and his wife longed to be heard and have a voice herself. These men had much to teach each other.

In God’s economy, they each had something the other desperately needed. In such a friendship, they could speak hard truths to each other, within the safety of fraternal, brotherly love. God wanted to use those hard truths to work paradigm shifts in both men, bringing them into a new, exciting, and adventurous life they never dreamed possible.

There was only one thing standing in the way. Fear, manifesting as Pride, fed by Offense.

But God kept stacking the deck. John couldn’t worship without having Jack’s face pop into his thoughts. As God planned, it was beginning to drive John crazy. Jack couldn’t go to sleep without having some dream about John giving him something he desperately needed—the one person Jack didn’t want to be indebted to. God was on the move.

One day John bit the bullet and asked Jack for coffee after church. Much to his disappointment, Jack accepted. Jack wouldn’t let John be the righteous one by refusing the invite. Heaven cheated. God actually played their pride against them to bring them together. Whatever works.

During that first cup of coffee all hell broke loose. Literally. Lies and deceptions that demons had spent years building fell to the ground in moments, smashed into a million pieces as each man realized the other was not who they thought. Hell was quite upset. It was like Heaven had no regard at all for the years of hard work it took to stand up that delicate, but powerful, deceptive house of cards.

Letting their offenses against the other go in that first conversation over that first cup of coffee wasn’t easy. It was a blow to the pride of both men. They each had to consciously decide to drop their offenses, starve their pride, and risk being vulnerable. But, on the other hand, their pride hadn’t been working out so well for them lately, so they gave it a go. After a year, they were both enjoying a deep friendship so much more than they had ever enjoyed being right. It was worth it and not nearly as lonely.

How about us? Does God have a friend for us, whom we desperately need, that we’re too offended at to ask for coffee? Can we lay down our right to be right and be friends instead? Have you had this experience, on either end? Tell us in the comments and please share if you think this would bless someone else.

The Secret to Repairing a Relationship You’ve Damaged

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We’ve all done it. We’ve damaged a relationship we cared about. We know we’re at fault, although we don’t like to admit it. How can we repair that relationship? Some would say it’s like feathers shaken out of a pillow on a mountaintop—you can never put them back in—it’s too late. I respectfully disagree. There is a way to put the feathers back in the pillow.

Relationships are like bank accounts. They have balances. When we damaged the relationship, we tipped the scale away from the other person. From their point-of-view, there’s a negative balance in the account. That’s why the relationship’s damaged. We need to make a deposit.

“Making it right” is not good enough. Maybe we broke or lost something that belonged to the other person. Just replacing the item is not enough, although that technically “makes it right” and undoes the thing we did. But really we just brought the negative balance back to zero. The other person went from a positive balance to zero—they still lost overall in the transaction. They’ve forgiven us at this point, but they still feel slighted in the transaction, which is why the relationship is damaged.

The secret is to make a deposit (or several deposits) great enough to get the other person above their previous positive balance. Once they feel the scales are tipped back in their favor, you’ve repaired the relationship.

Look at it from their point-of-view. Say my neighbor borrows my car, gets in a fender-bender, and has it repaired. He brings it back and says, “Hey, Dave, I got in an accident but I got it repaired. Here’s your car.” I thank him and forgive him, but am I going to let him borrow my car again? Nope. I feel slighted in the transaction. Now my car’s been in an accident. They never quite drive the same. My resale value is negatively affected, blah, blah, blah. While I’m thankful he at least fixed my car, the relationship is still damaged, because I feel like I’m still getting the short end of the stick.

But say he brings my car back and says this instead: “Hey, Dave, I got in an accident but I got it repaired. While it was in the shop, I took out your stock AM/FM radio and replaced it with a state-of-the-art, surround-sound, premium sound system, with a 6 CD disc changer. Here’s your car.” Now can he borrow my car again? Anytime he wants! And I hope he gets in an accident! Maybe I’ll get spinners next time. (Kudos to John Sandford, Elijah House Ministries, for this example.)

You see how this works? It’s called Restitution. It’s the secret to repairing damaged relationships. You have to go over and above to do something the other person views as significant to tip the scales back in their favor. Restitution makes a deposit that takes the relationship balance back above where it was previously, in the other person’s eyes.

Here’s a couple more examples:

  • If broke your neighbor’s lawn mower, not only do you buy him a new one, top-of-the-line even if his other one was not, you buy him a top-of-the-line weed-whacker as well.
  • If you lost your friend’s book, not only do you replace it, searching high and low on eBay if you have to if it’s out of print, but you give her a $200 Amazon gift card along with it.

It doesn’t have to be monetary restitution, although those are easy examples. Here’s a non-monetary one.

  • Maybe you’ve said or did something really hurtful to your spouse. So you get up early and do some chore they normally do that you know they hate. Maybe you know they clean the bathrooms every Friday, so you get up at 4:00 AM every Friday so you can do it before going to work. How long? Forever. And you don’t say a word about it. Let them discover it.

Restitution is a sacrifice you make, could be monetary, could be effort, from a place of empathy over the pain you’ve caused them. Not because you’re hurting. Because they’re hurting.

Some caveats here:

  • It has to be something significant from the other person’s point-of-view, not from yours. It has to be something meaningful to them.
  • You can’t ask them—that just comes across as the manipulation it is. This might not seem fair, but think about it. Once you ask, you make it about you: “What box do I have to check to get on your good side again?” But that’s not fair! I can’t read their mind! No, but:
    • The Holy Spirit can, and will tell you the answer if you seek him out about it. God is totally into restoring relationships. That’s what that whole cross thing was about.
    • If you care enough about the relationship, you’ll put the effort into figuring it out. Trial ‘n’ error is ok.
  • You can only do this with the right heart. This isn’t penance. You’re not trying to manipulate them because you want something from them. You’ll truly broken and hurt, not because you feel guilty over what you’ve done, but honestly because of the pain you caused them. You hurt because they’re hurting, and you want to bless them not hurt them.
  • Don’t bother with narcissists. There are people that secretly rejoice inside when you do something negative to them. They hold that negative bank account over your head as a way to manipulate and control you, and no restitution you do is ever enough. I wrote this post with the assumption that the relationship you’re trying to repair is a healthy one. No relationship with a narcissist is a healthy one. Do whatever a reasonable person would accept, but don’t submit to any control a narcissist tries to exert beyond that. If they walk away from the relationship, let them.

The other person may or may not allow the relationship to be restored. That’s on them and their ability to forgive. But you’ve done, and continue to do, everything the Holy Spirit lays on your heart to do. Depending on the offense, restitution can take years. But it’s so worth it.

Does this strike a chord with you? Does this resonate? Tell us your story in the comments. How did you repair that relationship? And please share if you think this would help someone else (share buttons below).

The Good Guy and Bad Guy Chairs

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When someone has seriously wronged us, especially when they don’t acknowledge the wrong and their hurtful behavior still continues, it’s really easy to put them in the Bad Guy Chair. This automatically puts us in the Good Guy Chair. Which on the surface doesn’t seem so bad. After all, we’re the innocently wronged party here, right?

But there’s a catch. A subtle, tricky, deadly catch. Just like a hook is death to a fish, the God Guy Chair is one of Satan’s sneakiest and most deadly hooks to our spiritual growth and life in the Kingdom.

Because the Good Guy Chair has another name. A secret name. A hidden name. It’s real name. And you really don’t want to be in this chair:

The Victim Chair.

Nothing stunts our spiritual growth faster than a respite in the Victim Chair. Because holding the other person in the Bad Guy Chair sucks us into the Victim Chair with a force as deterministic as gravity. In fact, go ahead and call it Spiritual Gravity. Unforgiveness. And unforgiveness is the most effective spiritual growth killer in Satan’s arsenal.

Here’s the deception: We don’t think of ourselves as being unforgiving. We may have even overtly “forgiven” the other person. But secretly in our hearts, we haven’t. As long as we still consider them the Bad Guy, our unforgiveness holds them in the Bad Guy Chair, which holds us in the Victim Chair, which arrests our spiritual growth right there. It condemns us to a life of bitterness and victimization. Who wants that?

The trick is, the only way out of the Victim Chair is to release the other person from the Bad Guy Chair. But wait! You don’t know what they did to me! It was really, really bad!!! Yes, it was. Forgiveness doesn’t mean minimizing the evil they did to you or pretending like it never happened.

They did something horrible to you. Hold them accountable for it with whatever (godly) means are at your disposal. Press charges if it’s a criminal act. Confront them. Set boundaries so they can’t hurt you again. Holding them accountable gives them opportunity to come out of their deception that caused them to hurt you in the first place. It also protects futures victims from becoming victims.

But here’s the point: They themselves are not the evil thing they did to you. It came out of their own pain and their own deceptions that they are living under. Hurt people hurt people. That does not justify what they did, and they are accountable for it. But coming to the realization that they are not the evil thing they did to you is the essence of true forgiveness. We are not what we do.

Then you finish forgiveness by praying blessing over them. Real blessing, not through gritted teeth. When you can do that, without that heart-twinge because you’re forcing it, you know you’ve released them from the Bad Guy Chair and so you’re out of the Victim Chair. Hallelujah! Let’s hear it for freedom!

The stages of forgiveness parallel the stages of grief – Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. So give yourself a break if you’re not ready to pray true blessing over them yet. Just keep moving in the right direction. Don’t short-change the process. Let yourself be angry. Let yourself grieve. Tell the Lord you want to want to and he’ll get you there.

Is this ringing a bell? Have you gone through this process of forgiveness? Is it something you’re working on? Tell us in the comments. We’d love to hear from you. Your story will help others. And please share on social media (click the appropriate share button below) if you think this would help someone else.

Restitution

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A young man went to a wise old guru with a problem, something he just didn’t understand. The young man asked the guru why he can’t take back hurtful words he’d said to someone. He’d apologized, but the relationship wasn’t the same. Why can’t he fix this?

The wise old guru took the young man on a treacherous climb up a tall mountain overlooking a deep gorge. It was very windy up way there. He had brought a feather pillow along with them. The guru took out his knife and slit open the pillow, waving it into the wind, scattering the feathers to the four winds.

Then he turned to the young man. As the guru handed him the now empty pillow fabric, he said, “Your task is to put all the feathers back in the pillow.”

“There’s no way!” exclaimed the young man. “That’s impossible! Once the feathers are out of the pillow, there’s no way to put them all back in again!”

The old guru nodded in agreement. “That’s why you can’t take back your hurtful words. It’s too late. They are already out,” he said. The young man finally got it.

I’m sure many of you have heard this story before. The moral is to be careful what we say. But there’s something else going on here. Turns out there actually is a way to put the feathers back in the pillow. It’s called restitution. It costs you a lot and it’s hard work, but it can be done.

Let me back up a minute. Say Person A wrongs Person B. We’re assuming it’s an accident, not a heinous crime or anything like that. Just normal day-to-day relationship stuff. We’ve all been in both positions.

Say you’re Person B who was wronged. Say Person A borrowed something special to you and lost it or broke it. Maybe the lost a special out of print book, or broke your lawn mower. Maybe they borrowed your car and got in a fender bender. Maybe they accidentally injured you by some careless act on their part. And worse, maybe they acted like it was no big deal. Or maybe they were mortified and replaced it or had it fixed.

Either way, say you’ve forgiven them. But there’s a boundary their now. You’re probably not going to let them borrow something again. Setting healthy boundaries is healthy, and does not (necessarily) mean you’re in unforgiveness. Especially if they act like it was no big deal, and wonder what’s wrong with you that you’re making it one, or they have a pattern of disrespecting other people’s things.

I would totally recommend setting that boundary. It’s not about the item, it’s about honoring, which is the currency in the Kingdom of God. Your boundary forces them to confront the issue in their heart with dishonoring others, which they can choose do to or not. You’re not responsible for their response to a healthy boundary.

Now let’s say you’re Person A, who did the wronging. We’ve all been there. Say you want to repair the relationship. How can you get the other person to remove that boundary? By restitution.

Relationships are like scales. Person B feels like the scales are tipped away from them, like they got the short end of the stick in the transaction. Restitution tips the scales back in their favor. Here are some examples:

If broke your neighbor’s lawn mower, not only do you buy him a new one, top-of-the-line even if his other one was not, you buy him a top-of-the-line weed-whacker as well.

If you lost your friend’s book, not only do you replace it, searching high and low on ebay if you have to if it’s out of print, but you give them a $200 Amazon gift card along with it.

If you got in a fender bender, you not only fix the car, but you replace their stock AM/FM radio with a 6-disc CD changer and a premium surround-sound stereo. (Kudos to John Sandford, founder of Elijah House Ministries, for this example.)

It doesn’t have to be monetary restitution, although those are easy examples.

Maybe you’ve said something really hurtful to your spouse. So you get up early and do some chore they do that you know they hate. Maybe you know they clean the bathrooms every Friday, so you get up at 4:00 AM every Friday so you can do it before going to work. How long? Forever. And you don’t say a word about it. Let them discover it.

Restitution is a sacrifice you make, could be monetary, could be effort, from a place or empathy over the pain you’ve caused them. Not because you’re hurting. Because they’re hurting.

You can only do this with the right heart. This isn’t penance. You’re not trying to manipulate them to drop the boundary because you want something from them. You’ll truly broken and hurt, not because you feel guilty over what you’ve done, but honestly because of the pain you caused them. You hurt because they’re hurting, and you want to bless them.

They may or may not drop the boundary and allow the relationship to be restored. That’s on them and their ability to forgive. But you’ve done, and continue to do, everything you can. Depending on the offense, restitution can take years. But it’s worth it.

If you’re the wronged party, you (usually) can’t demand restitution; that can be manipulation. And you’re perfectly justified keeping your healthy boundary in place forever if they never do anything (words don’t count) to show you their heart has changed.

If you did the wrong, you can’t ask the other person what it takes to lift the boundary; that (usually but not always) shows you’re just in it for the benefit to yourself. You’ve got to figure it out, possibly by trial ‘n’ error. But ask the Lord, he knows, and he’s all over restoring relationships. After all, that’s why he went through that whole cross and resurrection thing.

Does this strike a chord with you? Does this resonate? Tell us in the comments a story where you’ve been on one side or the other. And please share on Facebook if you think this would be helpful to someone else (click the “f” button below).