Yesterday morning I had the privilege of listening to a lecture on anger. Or at least what I thought was going to be on anger. After an acknowledgement of the "tip of the iceberg" principle that describes anger, the speaker moved to forgiveness. What a great move! But I was shocked. We don't usually go there. For the victim or the perpetrator. The one who hurts or the one who is hurt.
He went on to explain that we need to. We need to get rid of the notion that we can forgive and forget. We can hope to do the work of forgiving and eventually letting go. Forgive and forget is a pipe dream. Only God does that. Only God CAN do that. He used a great metaphor to illustrate what he was talking about with the letting go. He said that if you are harboring that anger, resentment or bitterness for very long you can seem like you are getting on with life but at best you have a stake driven through your shoe into the ground and you cannot go very far. You can turn around in circles but there is no moving on. You are stuck. And the worst part is that the anger, bitterness and resentment just continues to grow...
I love that metaphor. Not resolving the roots of anger can do that. Unforgiveness can do that. The speaker went on to talk about dealing with hurts that won't go away. They are quite possibly the roots of anger.It could also be expectations that are unrealistic or unfulfilled. Or, needs that are unmet... hmmmmm. Do any of these ring a bell? Do you need to addrress your anger? Do you need to offer forgiveness even when someone else isn't asking for it or is deserving of it? Do it anyway. Or at least start the process of trying to to do it. It may take a while and you may need help along the way.
It was good to hear this yesterday. Anger can be something that festers and boils under the surface feeding the bitterness monster inside you or it can be a constant battle with explosions that destroys everything around you. Unforgiveness is one of the roots here. Contact me if you need to work on this.
4 comments:
I also like what Bruxy Cavey said, "We think we have forgiven, and then sometime have a swell of anger rise and catch us off-guard; we feel discouraged, and may conclude that we haven't forgiven. But it is a process. And why not do forgiveness like you do everything else in life: imperfectly. Just make the decision to keep on moving..."
Like "keep on moving...", that's why I used the word eventually
Forgiveness is a choice and many times is not easy to do. Yet, through Christ we can do all things as He gives us the strength to do make the right choices - the healthy choice. Those choices that set us free as we all know unforgiveness, bitterness, anger, shame, etc imprison us. And as Jeff said it is a process – two steps forward, one back. However in that step back it doesn’t mean we have not forgiven, its just that – a step back. We continue to walk in the forgiveness we gave. We keep moving forward. We continue on, as one day that painful situation will no longer bother us.
Is forgiveness about forgetting? I don’t think it’s about forgetting so much as it is about no longer being imprisoned by your past or a specific situation. It’s about no longer feeling the pain of it all. Personally, I never want to forget where I have come from. I feel if I were to forget – it would be forgetting all those wonderful an amazing thing Christ did for me along my path to wholeness. I don’t want to forget.
Linda
Great point, Linda, about what Christ has done in the process. Forgiving is not about forgetting. I don't believe we can. I don't believe we need to. Not forgetting is like having scars from an injury that we can see but don't hurt us anymore. Letting go is what needs to happen. We forgive, we release, we let go... God heals.
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