I want to begin moving into the area of forgiveness and thought I’d start with the quote below.
The greatest single hindrance to gaining a clear conscience is the feeling that the ones we offended were wrong too. In fact, we often feel that they were mostly wrong. Our focus on blaming them balances our own guilt and forces us to live with both guilt and blame. This is not God’s way. (Anonymous)
I wish I knew who said this because he/she hits the nail on the head! It’s sad but true that when we have done something wrong we almost always seek a way out and that usually involves trying to pin the blame, or at least most of the blame onto somebody else. Unfortunately, when we do not take ownership of our own wrong it ends up hurting us even more. In trying to ease our own conscience we end up heaping more guilt upon it.
The easiest way I know to live with a clear conscience is taking responsibilities for my own actions without trying to shift the blame on to the other person. It’s when we try to shift the blame that we have problems. We try to convince ourselves that our actions were better than the other persons. We then begin to play the “I’m better than him/her” game or the “I’m less at fault” game and all we really end up doing is trying to justify our actions or attitudes. This has the reverse effect of actually causing us more hurt and pain.
Here’s something we need to understand, a principle at work in our lives: every time I hurt someone I become enslaved to them and need forgiveness to be set free. I am basically at the mercy of the person I hurt. What breaks this chain of slavery is a very simple act – the act of asking for forgiveness and of receiving forgiveness. You see, to receive forgiveness we need to ask for it and to embrace it.
Blaming others is not the road to forgiveness and healing but rather it is the road to more pain, more hurt, more bitterness and more resentment. It eats us up and slowly destroys us. It destroys our joy, our love and enjoyment of life. It dulls us hearts and slowly squeezes the love out of it, making it harder and harder to love and receive love.
It takes humility, courage and integrity to come to the place of admitting our wrong, asking for forgiveness and seeking forgiveness.
If only we would begin to focus on our own wrongs and do something positive to correct them.
Many times we do not set out to hurt people, we just end up doing so! I remember when I was in Spain attending the leadership development course there. I began to be very convicted about how I have hurt people without ever intending to hurt them. This became very clear to me when one time I was chatting with a friend who was also a delegate at this training course. She made the off-handed remark that it had been so good to really get to know me! Now, sometimes I am a little slow but this time I picked up what she was meaning. So, I asked her.
11 years ago she and her husband had moved up to Chiang Rai and we were studying Thai together. So my friend replied, “well back then, when we live in Chiang Rai, I was really scared of you!” Wow, that really hit me. Now, I know the people who really know me love me and enjoy being with me and hanging out with me for they get to know the real me. God had already been working on this area of my life – my big mouth! I could easily be abrasive and not know it. I could easily come across as being proud and not even know it. Talk about being a little thick!! 🙂
Even if we hurt people unintentionally I believe that it is important to go and ask for forgiveness – if it comes to your attention that you have been hurtful. If we become aware that we could have been hurtful with our words or actions or attitudes then I also believe it is important to go and ask for forgiveness.
We need to do all that we can to make it right. To do so helps us to be able to live with a clear conscience.
There are a lot of things I have done wrong throughout my life, a lot of rather stupid things when I was younger! As the Lord brings these to my attention I seek to rectify the situation and do what I can to make right the wrong I have done. I am so grateful to my wife who has encouraged me as I have tried to work through all the junk in my life. It’s junk I could easily blame for all the stuff I struggle with today. It’s what I have done in the past and it’s simply tragic how I had become so enslaved to the junk. It held me captive! But, forgiveness has been setting me free from it all. I still have a long way to go but I am moving forward.
That’s why I was not surprised when my friend said she was scared of me. I’m still working through all the junk and I kind of suspect it will take me until Jesus calls me home to keep working through it all.
The turning point for me was the time, back almost 20yrs ago, when I was trying to work through some issues in my life. I felt the Lord very clearly say to me that as long as I blamed the other person I would never be set free. I needed to take responsibility for my own actions , my own attitudes and my own choices. What had happened to me was wrong and terrible but my response was also wrong. Bitterness began to seep into my heart and I struggled so much in relating to people. The truth was, I didn’t really know how to relate well with people. I was lonely and apart from my wife, had very few people I could call my close friends.
Another important principle I have discovered and now seek to always live by is the importance of living in the light. For so long I kept my struggles hidden. Penny had no idea of my pain because I would not allow her into this area of my life. The more I invited her in to be a part of the healing process the greater freedom and healing I began to experience. It simply amazing how freeing it is to get something out into the open. Getting to this point of bringing it out into the open is incredibly difficult! We need the loving support of family and friends.
Anyways, enough for now. I’ll blog more later when I get back from my national leaders meeting.
Lannalife's Blog 