Yes!

I was waiting in the lobby of a church I had pastored many years ago. A former deacon walked up to me. We were the only two people in the room at the time. He seemed a little nervous as we spoke and then said to me, "I owe you an apology, I said and did a lot of things against you when you were our pastor and I want you to know I'm sorry."

I was caught a little off guard, at first. To be honest, I could not remember specifically what he had done. I had forgiven him a long time ago. I stumbled a little over my words.

"Thank you," I said, "I appreciate you saying that. I forgave you already. I know it took a lot for you to say that. Thank you."

"I just felt like I needed to say it," he said. We continued to talk, more freely now, it seemed. It was like an invisible wall had been lifted between us.

There was another side to that story that I did not go into with him. He was a part of a group that had made life difficult for me over a period of years. In spite of their efforts we saw many successes in that church. Much later, I found myself needing to talk about it with a close friend who was not associated with that church. I tried to not be too critical and to focus on the lessons I had learned. I did not realize how much I continued to talk about it until one day he turned to me and said, “They must have really hurt you.” I had not admitted it before, but yes, they had. Admitting the pain that caused me to want to talk about it seemed to lift the burden. I was finally able to truly forgive them and felt a huge burden lift from my shoulders. When I finally faced the pain I felt such a difference that I knew something had truly changed in my heart.

When my children were small I got tired of listening to tattling and made a new house rule. “If what you want to tell me begins with someone else’s name I don’t want to hear it.” That did not apply to emergencies, of course. But, it did slow down the tattling.

God has a similar rule but words it a little differently. In the Lord’s Prayer he taught us to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12) Or, to rephrase it, “Forgive what we owe you as we forgive all those who owe us something.” Forgiveness was so important to Jesus that he repeated it at the end of the Prayer, (Matthew 6:14-15). His forgiveness is conditioned on our forgiveness.

What was it that kept me from forgiving them before? In a word my problem was pride. Pride is a sin that attaches itself to other problems and makes them worse. I was unable to truly forgive because of pride, even though I said the words before and thought at the time I was sincere. Pride can keep us from forgiving and accepting the forgiveness of others. Pride can cause us to keep making the same mistakes over and over. After all, we always think the problem is them not us! That is the essence of pride. In my situation I would not allow myself to admit that they hurt me. Admitting the pain seemed like a defeat. However, when I turned loose of my pride and finally admitted it, it turned into a victory. Forgiveness is the prayer God always answers, “Yes!”

Bro. Robin