How to Fully Forgive

I remember Dr. Ben Johnson, co-author of The Healing Code, say that there has never been a case of cancer he’s dealt with as a cancer doctor, that didn’t have a strong element of unwillingness to forgive at its base.

Sobering, isn’t it?

Bitterness and an unwillingness to forgive can not only be the “heart issue” that fosters disease in the body, but it can also be one of the biggest things that keeps us stuck.

Furthermore, we may THINK we’ve forgiven, yet we really haven’t.

I have heard Alex Loyd say that the acid test of whether we truly have forgiven someone is whether we are able to 100% unconditionally accept the person. (Not the act, but the person. The distinction is important.) If we cannot accept the person, we have not really forgiven.

(Ouch!)

By this test, I have had to revisit a person or two I thought I had forgiven. If I’m truly honest, I have not forgiven because I still do not accept them unconditionally.

One of my clients reminded me of something that may help you get to that place of  “unconditional acceptance of the one you’re forgiving” (whether it’s another person, yourself, or even God). If it’s difficult to just “let the issue go,” let it go somewhere.

Or more precisely, to Someone. Namely, God.

See, if we think that forgiving means letting go of the issue, and that’s it, then it violates this innate sense of justice we have. We’re reluctant to “give it up” because we feel that justice should somehow be done.

And so it should. It’s just that we’re not to be the ones to execute it.

We would mess it up, because we don’t have all the facts.  There is One who does know all, and has a keener sense of justice than we do. Keener, and more accurate because it’s based on perfect knowledge.  The Bible says we’re not to take revenge or try to “pay back” anyone ourselves, but leave it up to God:  “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19).

I once read a novel that had a huge impact on my ability to forgive.  It was called The Peaceable Kingdom by Jan de Hartog. The author did a masterful job with point of view that I never forgot. He would switch to different characters’ points of view, and you’d see how one little bit of information that one character had, and another didn’t, changed the whole picture.  I think that one book has done more to help me develop compassion and forgiveness than anything else.  You can’t tell what little bit of history about a person might change the whole picture, if only you knew.

God knows.  Only he searches the motivations of a person’s heart and knows all the history. He’s the one who is perfectly loving and just.  He’s the one to whom we can entrust our issue as we forgive.

Of course, if your issue is with forgiving God, then you need to work on your image of him so that it’s a true image and not some distortion. I think most of us have a distorted view of God because none of us had perfect parents, and that “imprint” of whatever our parents were like affects our view of God, our spiritual parent.

One of the things Scripture suggests is to focus on how much God has forgiven you. If you haven’t ever read the parable of the unforgiving servant, you might want to take a look at Matthew 18:21-35. It’s a great “perspective corrective” when you are trying to forgive someone else. It appeals to our sense of both justice and mercy, and helps us understand God’s viewpoint.

Which is what we really want, isn’t it? God’s viewpoint is the only sure reality, everything else is merely human opinion….

If you would like some extra help on this crucial issue, I’d be happy to get you a custom Healing Code specifically for forgiveness, or for anything else. Just go to HealingCodesCoachng.com.