Forgiveness Part 4: Effects of Unforgiveness

When God put this series on forgiveness on my heart, I was a bit nervous because it's the longest one I've done on my blog. I wasn't sure if I would have enough new insights and teachings to effectively speak on this topic. I was wrong! God has taught me a lot on how to forgive while preparing me for these posts. 

      The first post in this series was on the fact that forgiveness is a command, not an option. God calls us to live a life of forgiveness. It doesn't mean we live life allowing others to hurt us, it just means we stop making a tab/bill of all that's owed to us. The second post looked at how forgiveness isn't just a thought process, but an action that WE have to undertake in order to truly live it out. The third post was about labels and how we have to be careful with the rigid labels we put on people because it affects the way we think and respond to them and the way we perceive our own wrongs. 

      This post is the final one in the series and it's the one that I knew I wanted to write since the beginning. Sometimes we engage in unforgiveness thinking that we're punishing the other person when really it has a greater effect on us and our relationships. The other person may live with a sense of guilt and regret, but by being unforgiving we take on so much more. It begins to strain OUR relationships by breeding mistrust, fear, and insecurities. It also strains our relationship with God.

      When we refuse to forgive, we keep the wrong done to us at the forefront of our minds. We constantly think about it and let it eat away at us. We begin to see evidence of the same wrong done to us happening in other relationships. We become mistrusting, expecting others to hurt us in the same way we've been hurt in the past. It keeps us from having healthy relationships with people because we are busy keeping them at a safe distance so they won't hurt us the same way others have.

      It is this fear of experiencing the pain, sadness, and sense of betrayal again that keeps us from being known and loved. We begin to hide or build a barrier to protect ourselves. While it may keep us from being hurt in the same way, it ironically causes us more damage. Rather than experiencing the fruit of healthy relationships (with family, friends, or our significant other), we miss out on the chance for healing to take place. In fact, it may have hurt our perception of ourselves, others, or God. Maybe you started to feel insecure about your self-worth. Being hurt may have been a blow to your self-esteem. It may have made you mistrust the sincerity of others, causing you to wonder what they really think about you or what their intentions really are. Maybe now you don't trust the affection and care others show you. If you're feeling all these things then you probably have the same questions about God.

      Unforgiveness breeds so many insecurities. Because you are holding onto this wrong, it begins to cloud your vision. You stop remembering the ways people have loved and cared for you. You stop remembering the loyalty people have shown in their relationship with you. Instead you look at and focus in on the way you've been hurt because you don't want it to happen again. You look for evidence of the possibility someone else (or the same person) will do it again. And of course that needs justification so you may begin to label the other person as being a hurtful person, but then when that doesn't hold true across their other relationships (or you've been hurt in a similar way in different relationships), you turn on yourself. If nothing is wrong with them then something must be wrong with me. Why else would people hurt me? Something about me must make it hard for people to love and respect me.      

      These kind of questions are natural, but if asked long enough we may begin to find answers that aren't true. We become overly self-critical to the point where it becomes damaging. We begin to have unrealistic expectations for ourselves and little grace for a need for growth. That's not how we're meant to live. No one is perfect. Of course we strive to be better, but beating ourselves up when we're not is counterproductive. It increases our judgmental attitude rather than our attitude of grace. If we can't love and appreciate ourselves then how can we believe that our perfect God does?

      Our relationship with God becomes strained because it becomes harder to believe in His love for us. We may wonder why He would want us. Besides that, the growing bitterness that unforgiveness brings may become directed at God for allowing those things to happen to us, rather than keeping us from being hurt. In fact, being spurned may cause us to distrust His plan for our lives, making us more reluctant to follow where He leads (because He often leads us to people). 

      The Bible calls us to a life rich in healthy relationships with others. In John 13:34-35 (NIV), Jesus says, "'A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.'" That is a big command! We are to love as God loves us. He didn't hold a grudge when He was on the cross. He didn't stew in bitterness over the debt we owed Him. Instead He set aside that debt to demonstrate the ultimate act of love and sacrificed His life and His pride for us. We are called to love that way. We need to let go of the debt we think is owed us, set aside and work through our unforgiveness, and live out God's call on our lives. 

      I know the heartache of being hurt and how difficult it is to forgive. I have lived with mistrust, fear, and insecurities. I saw it affect the faith I had in God's love for me. But, when I finally chose to stop living in unforgiveness, I experienced the healing of healthy relationships. My life is now filled with so much love, many blessings, and gratitude. I am treasured and known. Have I been hurt? Yes. But not as many times as I've experienced the fruit of loving others and being in authentic (rather than superficial) relationships. Here's the truth, when you bottle something up, you don't just bottle up the reaction or the pain, you bottle up the healing. It's time to let the bitterness go and move on to true freedom and security in who you are, how others see you, and how much God cherishes you.