May the Lord Jesus keep you safe, grow you up, strengthen you in mind, body & soul, and help you struggle well this coming week. Enjoy the excerpt... Bro. Rob
Excerpt from Boundaries by Cloud & Townsend, pages 262-264
“To err is human, to forgive is divine.” And to not forgive is the most stupid thing
we can do.
Forgiveness is very hard. It means letting go of something that someone
“owes” you. Forgiveness is freedom from
the past; it is freedom from the abusive person who hurt you.
The Bible compares forgiving people to releasing
them from a legal debt. When a debt is
incurred, when people trespass on your personal property, real “owing”
occurs. You have on the “books” of your
soul an accounting of who owes you what.
Your mother controlled you and owes you to make it right. Your father dominated you and owes you to
make it right. If you are “under the
law,” you are motivated to collect these debts from them.
Attempts at collection may take many forms. You may try to please them to help them pay
you back. You think that if you do a
little something more, they will pay their bill and give you the love they owe. Or you may think that if you confront them
enough, they will see their wrong and make it right. Or you may feel that if you convince enough
people of how bad you’ve had it and how bad your parents were, that will
somehow clear the account. Or you could
“take it out” on someone else, repeating the sin they did to you on someone
else--- or on them--- to even the score.
Or you could continue to try and convince them of how bad they are. You think that if they just understood, they
would make it better. They would pay
what they owe.
Nothing is wrong with wanting things to be
resolved. The problem is that things
will get resolved in only one way: with grace & forgiveness. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth
does not work. The wrong can never be
undone. But it can be forgiven and
thereby rendered powerless.
To forgive means to write it off. Let it go.
Tear up the account. It is to
render the account “canceled.” “Having canceled
the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood
opposed to us; He took it away, nailing it to the Cross” (Colossians 2:14).
To forgive means we will never get from that
person what was owed us. And that is
what we do not like, because that involves grieving for what will never be: The
past will not be different.
For some, this means grieving the childhood that
never was. For others it means other
things, but to hang on to the demand is to stay in unforgiveness, and that is
the most destructive thing we can do to ourselves.
Warning:
Forgiveness and opening up to more abuse are not the same thing. Forgiveness has to do with the past. Reconciliation & boundaries have to do
with the future. Limits guard my
property until someone has repented and can be trusted to visit again. And if they sin, I will forgive again,
seventy times seven. But I want to be
around people who honestly fail me, not dishonestly deny that they have hurt me
and have no intent to do better. That is
destructive for me and for them. If
people are owning their sin, they are learning through failure. We can ride that out. They want to be better, and forgiveness will
help. But if someone is in denial, or
only giving lip service to getting better, without trying to make changes, or
seeking help, I need to keep my boundaries, even though I have forgiven them.
Forgiveness gives me boundaries because it
unhooks me from the hurtful person, and then I can act responsibly,
wisely. If I am not forgiving them, I am
still in a destructive relationship with them.
Gain grace from God, and let others’ debts
go. Do not keep seeking a bad
account. Let it go, and go and get what
you need from God and people who can give.
That is a better life.
Unforgiveness destroys boundaries.
Forgiveness creates them, for it get bad debt off of your property.
Remember one last thing. Forgiveness is not denial. You must name the sin against you to forgive
it. God did not deny what we did to
Him. He worked through it. He named it.
He expressed his feelings about it.
He cried and was angry. And then
He let it go. And He did this in the
context of relationship. Within the
Trinity, He was never alone. Go and do
the same. And watch out for the
resistance that will want you to stay in the past, trying to collect what will
never be.
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