While I was on a long drive with my daughter I was talking about a situation with her sister that had frustrated me. It wasn’t that big of a deal and I thought it was something I had handed over to God, yet as I talked about it I felt my emotions rising. Then she asked me to stop talking about it because she didn’t want to be in the middle and although I did honor her request, I felt tears welling up. As I reflected on the conversation, God showed some things I hadn’t noticed before about the situation, me talking about it, and the feelings I had around it. He then provided me with a very clear next step of forgiveness for something which really didn’t seem forgivable to me because it wasn’t wrong or deliberately hurtful and perhaps it was even understandable. This got me really thinking that I’ve always thought of forgiveness as something I needed to do when someone committed a ‘universal’ wrong to me. You know, the big stuff that I think most people would view as wrong or offensive. I think I never considered the idea that if I am hurt or bothered by something someone did, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, if I have negative feelings about it, forgiving them may be exactly what I need to do. Perhaps my view of forgiveness has been far too narrow.

As I reviewed the conversation in my mind, I could see how I thought I was simply talking about the situation, however, I was really complaining about it and not just for the first time. God showed me two big indicators here that I need to be aware of. One was to listen to myself when I am complaining about someone or something and two is to notice how often I have brought this subject up to others or replayed it in my mind. Suddenly, I became aware of how often I do this and it seems as though there are many things that get under my skin that I had previously just ignored: the person who cut me off and almost hit me, the man who wouldn’t move out of the aisle so others could exit the airplane, the way someone handles something I have given to them, the person in the store who stands in front of what I’m trying to look at completely unaware. The list goes on and on and as I begin to listen to myself I find I often rehash what others do, often many times to many people, as well as in my mind.

When God gave me this insight, I had to ask Him to help me understand my motives. As I looked back, what I saw was that often what I complained about was really about me or rooted in my self-righteousness. I was inconvenienced, scared, hurt, or I picked up an offense, I…I…I, and yet I had feelings about these circumstances, which clearly I could not just ignore because they kept popping up. He revealed that I wasn’t able to let things go completely because I had feelings that I had not acknowledged or dealt with. It was okay that I had these feelings in these circumstances and I think I kept repeating it to others because I wanted my feelings validated by someone else when I wasn’t even able to acknowledge them myself. I was scared of getting in an accident when I was cut off. I felt like the man on the airplane thought he was better than me because he didn’t think of moving. I felt hurt with how my daughter handled our situation. I believe I am very careful with something given to me and I try really hard to always be aware and considerate of my surroundings and get out of others’ way. While these things are not completely true, my feelings are and once I was able to see them I could ask God to help me be honest with myself about them. In humility, I could see myself and my own selfish self-righteous behavior and accept how I felt about each individual instance no matter how petty or small. 

With this awareness, God showed me that these small, often selfishly motivated feelings were holding on to a piece of my heart and the only way to free myself is to choose to forgive the person. Forgiveness is the only way to honor both myself and my feelings, no matter how self motivated, as well as honor the other person and their own individual choices. Maybe these acts that bother me aren’t really big enough to forgive, but the person can always be forgiven for their behavior which is what God asks me to do. The reality is that most of the time someone is not doing something to me, they are doing the best they can with what they have at the time. By making the choice to offer another human forgiveness, I gain humility and perspective of my own actions and the freedom to allow others to be exactly as they are themselves. I can forgive the person who cut me off in traffic, how often have I done the same even if it was just a mistake? I can forgive my daughter for how she handled the situation, isn’t that what I want from her? I can forgive the person who bought my business for not running it the way I ran it, after all it’s his now, not mine. When I choose to forgive others, I allow God’s forgiveness and love to flow in and through me and I become free to live my life today and let others live theirs, not rehash what they have done.

Practice For Today

Today I will continue to listen to myself and notice when I start to complain about something. I will stop and ask God to show me my feelings regarding the situation, acknowledging and accepting them. I will then choose to let the person off the hook by choosing to forgive them for their behavior no matter how seemingly minor of an offense. I will then work on allowing God to open my eyes to my own behavior, seeing where perhaps I need to make amends to someone. In every step I will allow God to free more and more of my heart by freely offering the forgiveness I have already been given. 

Matthew 18:21-22 ESV     Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

Colossians 3:13 NIV     Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.