Forgiveness: Expect to do it often. You cannot control what evil someone does to you, but you certainly are responsible for your own response to whatever someone does to you. Do not react with passion, but respond with love.
If you refuse to forgive, you make yourself a holier-than-thou self-righteous judge over another human being. Do not forget that you are a sinner, too! By setting yourself in judgment over someone else, you assume the position of moral superiority. Have you forgotten that your own sin condemns you before the Judge who knows every secret of your heart? Repent and forgive.
Withholding forgiveness may give you a sense of power and control over a situation and over another individual. We have a tendency, because of our pride and self-will, to want to exert control when something happens that we can’t control. In other words, we are tempted to lose internal self-control (which we have acquired though our ascetic therapy) as a reaction to our loss of external control over the people and events around us. Unforgiveness does not give you control. That is an illusion. In reality, unforgiveness gives the passions control over you and may give the offender control over your thoughts and emotions. If you do not forgive, you chain yourself to the offender. All you have to do is think of that person or what happened to you and you will get angry and upset again. Under these conditions, it makes it easy for the offender’s words, action, even presence, to tempt and provoke you further. Your mind will keep thinking about what happened over and over like a hamster running on a wheel, but you will find no relief or freedom. You will run aimlessly as a prisoner in the cage you have built and locked from the inside. When you forgive, you act in accordance with the Way. In the same moment that you grant freedom to someone else in the Name of Christ, your chains are loosed and the door of your prison swings open. You are free!
If someone hurts you, be careful not to spread the poison of your passion and your negative grudge-keeping attitude to others by dramatically telling them the story. Chances are that in your version of the story, you will be the innocent victim. In doing so, you create drama, manufacture an atmosphere of tension and anxiety, then draw others into your own sin, and infect them with the influence of your passions, especially anger and resentment. Look at what you have done. You have successfully spread a problem between two people – you and another person – into a problem between the other person and the entire informal resentful mob you have gathered around your own single biased perspective. Instead of doing this, forgive. Be an agent of peace, a passionless ambassadors for the Kingdom of Heaven. If others happen to discover how you were hurt, encourage them to fight fire with water, that is, with the refreshing spring of love, peace, and forgiveness, dismissing the offence, letting it flow into the past like water rushing under the bridge, instead of unsuccessfully trying to fight fire with more fire, fanning the flames of anger and resentment.
Others may become angry because they love and care for you. They are upset that you have experience injustice. Remind them that from a spiritual perspective forgiveness produces justice. Sin and death, with all the secondary symptoms, including the passions, are aspects of the great injustice against humanity. These things were never supposed to be part of our human experience. Forgiveness, then, brings justice because forgiveness is a judgment of condemnation against sin, death, and chaos, and, having removed these obstacles, allows one to fully experience of Life, which makes the human person whole. Forgiveness also restores the relationship, making it whole as well, as far as possible.
We must forgive, because God forgives us. In fact, we pray for God to forgive us as we forgive others. Even if the offender is not sorry or doesn’t ask forgiveness, forgive freely and move on. Forgiveness does not imply that the offender did not do evil against you, but it releases a fellow human being from the debt you think is owed to you. Allow the Grace of God to pay any debt on the offender’s behalf because forgiveness attracts Grace and gives you far more positive, good benefits than you would receive from holding a negative debt against someone.
When you forgive, be prepared for the temptation of unforgiveness to rise up within you. Resist this temptation as often as it presents itself. Remind yourself that you have already forgiven and pray for the one whom you have forgiven. Ask the Master to forgive you for your sins, give thanks for His mercy, and ask Him to give you the compassion and strength to pour out forgiveness on others generously. The power of His divine forgiveness can work through you so that you can forgive beyond what is humanly possible, even to love your enemies.
Since you are a sinner, someone will likely be offended by you, even if you have not intended to do so. When someone believes or feels that you have sinned against them, do not justify your words or actions, but humble yourself and ask forgiveness saying, “Forgive me.”
Remember, forgiveness is not just for the benefit of another person, but for the health of your soul. Whatever you receive from another, be sure to give the gifts of humility, compassion, love, and forgiveness in return.
Read: Genesis 8.11; Matthew 6.9-15; Luke 17.3-4; Colossians 3.12; Ephesians 4.29-32; 1 John 4.7-21
Text copyright © 2018 by Fr. Symeon D. S. Kees