I experience true forgiveness
Forgiveness might be the most complex and challenging action we can do for each other, and maybe more importantly, for ourselves.
Not everyone agrees with this particular emphasis on the nature of forgiveness, but I do. I have carried the burden of unforgiven deeds, thoughts, and interactions for years and decades; it has eaten me up—and it still sometimes rears its ugly head.
I mentioned above that I work to build a free online tool called Translation Insights & Perspectives, a massive web-based collection of words, concepts, and phrases from the Bible translated into hundreds of languages and back-translated into English. Especially for concepts that are difficult to understand, it's very powerful to see how other languages and cultures process those ideas and how the wisdom of that process can aid us in our own understanding.
It's been really helpful for me to study just a few of the Bible's back-translations for "forgive" or "forgiveness":
to give back
to wipe out
to be released
to turn your back on
to unstring someone from your heart
This little list builds a helpful scaffold I can climb to mount an otherwise insurmountable challenge.
It tells me that forgiveness is something that frees me, unstrings me, something that enables me to turn my back on something in my past that keeps me in chains. I find it remarkable that in those last three concepts listed above it's about me rather than the person I might have to forgive or ask for forgiveness. Clearly, one aspect of forgiveness is about going to another person and humbling myself or hoping the person might humble themselves—but that's only the start. It might be difficult and, well, humbling to ask for forgiveness, but it's my experience that there's no automatic mechanism to immediately lift the burden I've been carrying for such a long time. And clearly in a case where I've done something I feel guilty about—in relation to someone else, to myself, or maybe even to someone who will never be accessible—that burden's release will have to be negotiated within myself.
Why do I keep harping on about this? Because Christianity mirrors that concept of inner negotiation. Only the inner negotiation becomes an interaction with God.
Why?
Because at the very moment of recognizing God, the newly made Christian asks for forgiveness—for everything that has separated them from God in the past, and for all the unforgiveness that separates them now.
I can assure you that there's a fundamental difference between coming to terms within yourself and essentially forgiving yourself vs. asking forgiveness of someone who truly has the power to forgive. Forgiving yourself is important—for the shame you feel because of what someone else did to you, for the guilt and anger caused by your inability to forgive someone else, or, maybe the most obvious, for something you did that was contrary to your code of ethics. But asking for that forgiveness from someone you believe truly has the power to forgive you and—most mind-bogglingly—is willing to do it immediately and without any restrictions is a completely new level of freedom. You may still have to do some work yourself—especially when it comes to mending or releasing relationships—but God's forgiveness provides a deep assurance that will eventually carry you through to complete forgiveness.
Eventually?
Well, you'll remember I mentioned my own ongoing struggle to completely accept forgiveness. People who are wired like me will take more time to completely heal. But I can't imagine what I would look like if I weren't assured of God's forgiveness—every time, time and time again.
At the beginning of this book, I promised to talk about the advantages of being a Christian, of having an ongoing relationship with God. Counting on God's forgiveness may be the most liberating component in the arsenal of advantages that being a Christian allows me to access.
