Redefining Forgiveness

Mac: 0:02

Welcome to Praxis, a podcast where we explore how to practice and embody the way of Jesus in our everyday lives. Thanks so much for taking the time to listen. Today we're starting a new series on the topic of forgiveness. Few topics are more central to the Christian faith. Forgiveness is at the very heart of the gospel. Through Jesus, god offers us the gift of forgiveness and invites us into a restored relationship. Jesus embodies the forgiveness of God toward us when he prays on the cross Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. God's forgiveness towards us is a cause for great celebration. It's easy to rejoice in God's gift of forgiveness.

‍Mac: 0:41

We often have a really hard time practicing forgiveness ourselves. While the New Testament calls us to forgive others in the same way that God has forgiven us, the truth is we often struggle to extend forgiveness to others who have hurt us or wronged us. Rather than embracing the freedom and transformation that comes with forgiveness, including the possibility of reconciled relationship, we get stuck in bitterness and resentment, to our own detriment. So in this series, we wanna talk about how to actually practice and embody the forgiveness that Jesus invites and challenges us to live into, whether it's learning how to receive God's forgiveness or asking others to forgive you, or extending forgiveness to others. Our hope and prayer is that you'd sense God's invitation to go deeper into practicing the way of Jesus with us. So, with that in mind, today we want to kick off this series by clarifying what we are even talking about when we use the word forgiveness. What is forgiveness and what isn't forgiveness? That's where we're headed today. Let's get into it.

Katie: 1:53

Welcome everyone. My name is Katie.

Josiah: 1:55

And I'm Mac, I'm Josiah.

Katie: 1:57

So I got up and got on the Peloton this morning. You guys know I like my Peloton bike and the ride this morning had a music theme and it was 90s rock and it was so much fun. Like I was surprised how I remembered the words to like all these songs I hadn't heard and so I'm thinking sitting here, we were all born in the 80s, right Like, grew up in the 80s and then into the 90s. So what were some of your favorite—?

Mac: 2:21

Technically. So what were some of your favorite Technically? Technically, josiah, I'm old 89, though You're getting old and Josiah is young.

Katie: 2:25

I'm mid-80s, I was 89, so it's okay, oh, okay.

Josiah: 2:27

You're technically an 80s man. Technically.

Katie: 2:29

So do you remember the 90s? Yeah, okay.

Mac: 2:37

Did you listen to 90s music?

Katie: 2:39

Yeah, okay. Well, I mean, he's a music genius. You probably listened and remember.

Josiah: 2:43

That is a strong statement, but yes.

Katie: 2:44

So what are some of your favorite 90s bands?

Mac: 2:47

Okay, so this is a tricky question because on the one hand, I grew up in kind of a conservative Christian home.

Katie: 2:55

You can say DC Talk Mac.

Mac: 2:59

That was kind of like 80s, but then into the 90s. Yeah, I remember my dad coached our hockey team and so we had a lot of travel and he was really into the Jesus Freak album.

Katie: 3:07

So that was like on replay every time we were in the car. No wonder our dads are friends, because my dad was also into the Jesus Freak album.

Mac: 3:15

But I remember a couple things I remember. So this is more school influence. You wouldn't find this in our home, but like the kids listening to Nirvana, I remember that being a thing. And then I also remember this distinct moment. We lived in Georgia at the time. I spent two years in Georgia and all of a sudden I'm in my room and all of a sudden I hear lots of yelling. And my older sister had gotten in trouble because my parents had discovered an Alanis Morissette scene. And I just remember my dad being like jagged little pill.

Mac: 3:49

Do you know what that means? And it was like this thing. So most of my memories around like music, uh from the nineties was like either jamming to like Christian artists or people getting in trouble Cause it's not Christian, Uh huh.

Josiah: 4:05

Yeah, I remember my older brother. My dad must have heard what he was listening to, because he would. I mean, it was back in the day when you had CDs For younger people you don't even know what those are, but like CD booklets and he had a really thick one full of, you know, organizing all of his CDs to listen to in his truck. And my dad must have figured out that he had some stuff he shouldn't have. It was stuff like Metallica and hard rock stuff, and when my dad found it he took it outside and he took every single CD and snapped it over the curb with his foot.

Katie: 4:43

While your brother watched.

Josiah: 4:44

Yeah, but what he found out like as my brother is yelling and very angry, he's like those weren't even my CDs. I was borrowing them from friends.

Mac: 4:56

I just love that. Everybody who grew up in a Christian home like this probably has had some experience.

Katie: 5:01

Yep, I got mine. I asked for the Chumbawamba CD, I was given the Chumbawamba CD, I was given the Chumbawamba CD and then my Chumbawamba CD was taken away when my parents looked at the lyrics or heard from a friend what it actually was. But did they snap?

Mac: 5:14

it.

Katie: 5:15

They didn't snap it.

Mac: 5:15

Okay, they didn't snap it. Oh, that is so funny.

Katie: 5:18

If I were being honest, though, I loved, like Hootie and the Blowfish. Goo. Goo Dolls. I hope my husband doesn't listen to this episode because I'm never going to hear the end of it. But you're nodding, Adam. You agree with Alex. You agree with me.

Adam: 5:30

Oh no you, those are great bands.

Katie: 5:31

Oh, I think so too. Yeah, matchbox 20.

Adam: 5:34

Yeah, that's true. Okay, I feel like the 90s and and 2000s or 90s. They definitely started in the 90s.

Katie: 5:42

They started in the 90s. Yeah, I think of them as 90s.

Josiah: 5:47

Even some of those like 80s rock bands blended into the 90s too, like Metallica, had like a pretty large following at that in the 90s.

Mac: 5:55

I think, honestly, most of my knowledge of music came from, like, the weight room and the locker room. So that's how I got exposed to high school.

Katie: 6:05

Yeah, yeah, totally. I think 90s was the greatest era of music, but I'm biased.

Adam: 6:09

Wow I wonder how Swifters, swifties, swifties feel about that statement.

Katie: 6:18

Yeah, she probably wasn't even born. She was probably born in the 90s.

Mac: 6:23

Well, speaking of outdated music, we are stepping into a new series, and I want to start it by summarizing a parable that Jesus told in Matthew 18. It's sometimes titled the parable of the unmerciful servant servant, and the context of this parable is Peter, one of the disciples, asking Jesus how many times one is required to forgive someone else, and he thinks he's like stretching the possibility of forgiveness by going seven times. And Jesus goes no, not seven times, peter, nope, but like 70 times seven. In other words, you never stop forgiving. And then Jesus goes right into this parable of the unmerciful servant and basically the way the story goes is there's a servant who owes a king 10,000 talents. A talent was sort of like a unit of weight and, depending upon what you were weighing, like gold or silver that would determine how much money they were talking about. But just to put it in perspective, if it had been gold, that would be about $23 billion today. Whoa, yeah. So the idea, like Jesus is basically saying like this is an unpayable debt. There's no way you're ever going to be able to pay this back. Um, it's too much. Um, now, when you were unable to pay off a debt in this culture, typically you and your family would be sold into slavery.

Mac: 7:49

But this servant begins to beg this king for mercy and promises to repay everything, which, of course, he's not gonna be able to do, but out of great compassion, this king has mercy on this servant and forgives the entire debt $23 billion. Now you'd think this guy would become incredibly gracious and sort of a forgiving person, but the exact opposite thing happens. Shortly after this, the servant encounters someone who is in debt to him 100 denarii, which was about a day's wages, so like three months of work, but definitely a repayable debt wages, so like three months of work, but definitely a repayable debt. And this servant responds the same way he had responded to the king. He starts begging for mercy and promises to pay it all back, but the servant, instead of showing mercy and compassion and forgiving, throws this guy into prison. And then the parable ends on this rather dire note where the king hears about it and gets really angry and is outraged and takes this guy, who he had forgiven, and throws him into prison. Right the parable.

Mac: 8:54

The reason why I want to start with that is because it really captures, I think, the tension we're wanting to attend to in this series, and it's simply this on the one hand, it's easy to celebrate God's forgiveness towards us, right Like forgiveness is central to the gospel. God took on flesh in Jesus and went to the cross to forgive us and give us new life. Jesus embodies the forgiveness of God. We'll get more into this by praying Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. So, on the one hand, we know that forgiveness is what God offers us in Jesus and it's something to receive and celebrate and rejoice in. We're grateful for it. We're thankful for it.

Mac: 9:30

But on the other hand, if we're honest, we really struggle to forgive other people, just like the unmerciful servant. Instead of forgiving others the way that God has forgiven us, we often forget that we refuse to forgive. We harbor grudges, nurse wounds, hold on to bitterness and resentment, often to our own detriment. And so in this series we hope to we're going to cover, I think, a lot of ground, but we hope to talk about the patterns that keep us stuck, like here's why we get stuck in unforgiveness, and we plan to talk about how Jesus forgave people and then explore some of his teachings, and then I hope that we'll get really specific and sort of outline, a process of how to forgive in light of all of that. So that's kind of where we're headed in this series as a whole, and I thought let's start today by just talking about what forgiveness is and isn't. So we're kind of all on the same page. That sound good.

Josiah: 10:23

Yeah, yeah, I think there's a lot of reasons why people don't or I should say why people resist forgiveness with the people in their lives, and I think that's due to I think it's due to a lot of confusion around it. People resist forgiving other people cause they confuse forgiveness with what it isn't. Um, uh, one of the things I thought about, um, before we get into like all these things it's not is, um, I think sometimes this, uh, this idea gets created that that forgiveness sort of like fixes everything like a magic wand. You know, there's like a fairy godmother who kind of just says I forgive you and everything's great. Now I think about when I was growing up.

Josiah: 11:14

We were sort of trained in our household to forgive each other and I think there was a lot of good that came from that. You know, like if someone said sorry, you were forced to say I forgive you. Forced, yeah, I mean essentially, and I think it did some good work, like when the wrongs are very small, things like as kids like you know, someone hit you and they said sorry, I forgive, you know, and you kind of move on. And they said sorry, I forgive, and you kind of move on. But when we try to apply that to broader things or things that are much more harmful. Damage has been done and forgiveness starts to be equ. That's fixing it. All, I think, often holds us back from pressing into the work that you know. Yeah, like what do you do?

Mac: 12:16

Like mom, dad just took my friend's CDs and broke all of them over the curb, you know like what do we do then? Yeah, when it's bigger things, you know.

Josiah: 12:26

Yeah, that's so funny. But no, like, uh, but most of us I would think most of us listening or here at the table could identify people in our lives who have wronged us in some very real ways. And, uh, if we equate forgiveness with the process of cleaning up the entire mess and healing and all these things, with the process of cleaning up the entire mess and healing and all these things, and assume that it's all going to be done just because I chose to, I think that it creates confusion around what God is inviting us into when we practice it.

Mac: 12:56

I like the idea of like what you're naming around it. Almost some people resist it because it feels like we're just waving a magic wand and almost like the wand erases what just happened and our memory of it and then boom, now we're just supposed to go on and continue as if nothing happened, when in fact something did happen right, yeah, yeah.

Josiah: 13:16

And if we don't identify that, what will often happen is we'll just choose one or the other, like we'll either, you know, say fine, I forgive you, and choose it before we've really processed it, or we will resist forgiving and we'll hold on to it, and we sort of feel like there's only two choices. And I think what we're hoping to get into in this series is that forgiveness is much more expansive than that, and there's a lot of things that we need to sort of myths we need to dispel.

Katie: 13:45

Yeah, and I like that you pointed back to working this out as a kid, because I've also tried to kind of figure out how this works with my kids. Obviously there's limitations that just come with being really young, Like I don't know if you guys ever had one of your kids realize that they could say sorry after they did something wrong and then they just purposely keep doing something wrong and it's like sorry, and then they kick someone again sorry, they just say I had multiple kids kind of go through that phase and then it's like, okay, then what are you supposed to do?

Katie: 14:09

Just say I forgive you every single time. It's sort of it.

Mac: 14:12

Wait till they get older. My son, my oldest son, just this week was like you want me to say sorry, and I know that I don't feel sorry at all. So it's like this opposite of like. Hey, you know, like in this context where we know we're supposed to lean into forgiveness, yeah, I don't really want to.

Katie: 14:30

I'm out. What do you do with that? Let me know what you do with that, all right, yeah, no, I think you bring up a really good point, josiah. I think we have different ideas of what forgiveness is, and our idea of what forgiveness is is going to inform how we are able to step into it or not able or willing to step into it, right? One thing I would say forgiveness is not is it's not condoning what happened. Like imagine someone steps on your foot and you say like, oh, it's okay, step on my foot anytime you want. Like that's condoning the behavior. Like, yeah, keep doing it, but forgiveness would be saying I release you from anger and bitterness over what just happened. Right, like there's a difference there. When we forgive, we're not excusing what happened or minimizing it, but rather forgiveness, I think, is a posture of letting go of the burden of holding onto that anger and resentment. Does that make sense to you guys? What would you add to?

Mac: 15:23

that? Yeah, it does, and I would even say that true forgiveness is the exact opposite of condoning it. Real forgiveness requires naming the full truth of what happened, without minimizing or excusing it, and that's what actually makes it forgiveness. Otherwise, you're not really forgiving anything at all, right, you're just ignoring it or excusing it. And this is what makes forgiveness so powerful, as we sort of look at the full wrong of what happened and the impact it had, and then we lean in and we attend to that relationally and we release the other person. So let's just maybe an example of what I'm getting at, of how actually leaning in and naming the full truth of what happened is what makes forgiveness so. Actually leaning in and naming the full truth of what happened is what makes forgiveness so powerful.

Mac: 16:08

Let's say, for example, that one of my kids throws a ball inside and it goes right through the front of my guitar. Okay, if that guitar doesn't really matter to me and I'm like, oh, don't worry, no big deal, right? Um, I never was really planning on playing it again. Um, water under the bridge. Well, I haven't forgiven very much, have I? Yeah, right, but let's say that guitar means a lot to me and I'm like you know, I saved a lot of money a long time ago in order to buy this particular guitar. That's the guitar I used to sing a song when I proposed to your mom Did you.

Josiah: 16:44

Yeah, I did. Oh, wow, yep, I didn't know that, yeah.

Mac: 16:47

I wrote a song, sang it to her.

Josiah: 16:49

We would love to hear it on the podcast? That'd be great.

Mac: 16:53

And I forgive you. That's much more powerful than and it didn't really mean much to me. You know what I mean? Yeah, and I'm piggybacking on what you're saying to say I think some people confuse forgiveness for sort of minimizing the injustice, the wrong, the harm, because that's what they think forgiveness is. When I want to say no, it's actually the exact opposite. In order to forgive, you actually need to press into the full wrong that was done and even the impact that it had.

Josiah: 17:23

Yeah and we have the example of Jesus towards us. God is fully aware of every single thought we have like, counts the number of hairs on our head, thinks about us all the time and knows every wrong we've done and chooses to forgive. So forgiveness this idea that forgiveness is dismissing what happened really isn't accurate and it doesn't paint a picture of what true sort of transformational forgiveness looks like.

Katie: 17:56

Yeah, I was doing some reading online preparing for this yesterday and I came across the quote God doesn't condone sin, he redeems it. I think that captures what you're saying. Like, if we look at how God forgives us, I've never interpreted that as like a license to keep sinning. I haven't experienced that. When I've received his forgiveness, it feels like I don't deserve it and it feels like stepping into something that's hard and it does feel like redemption.

Mac: 18:21

Yeah, so there's a theological anchor point here, like God doesn't forgive sin by just pretending it didn't happen, like there's a full acknowledgement of it, and then we pivot from there. Okay, let me add another one that I think forgiveness is not Okay. Forgiveness is not forgetting what happened. Sometimes forgiveness and forgetting, I think, get conflated, but they're not the same thing. They're two separate or distinct things. Forgiveness involves no longer holding someone else's wrong actions against them, and sometimes that does lead to forgetting them. Right, like, yep, I, I'm not going to hold that against you and in time I forget that it happened, it's out of my memory, um.

Mac: 19:03

But forgiveness doesn't necessarily mean that you forget or that your memory is erased, and in fact, in some cases it might be important not to forget, especially in those cases where you're still having to be in proximity with that person and they either haven't admitted that they're wrong or haven't attended to the transformation or change required to not hurt you again. In those instances it might be really important not to forget so that you can maintain proper boundaries and sort of protect yourself from future harm or abuse. Does that make sense? Okay, like? Here's an example, right, like when I was a kid, I remember walking by the oven or the stove and it was on and I reached up and touched it and it was like I burned my hand, like, or like, real quick, pulled back, ooh, that's hot. It's good that I didn't forget that, because next time I'm walking by the stove it's like, hey, now I have that memory that that hurts. That's what I'm saying. Is that, like in some relationships, it might be important to not forget because that hurt.

Katie: 20:07

Right, yeah. So I hear you saying that forgetting can actually perpetuate harm, right, like had you forgotten that the oven burned your hand, you would have done it over and over and over. So when we forget, we actually open the door for that harm to keep occurring. But when we forgive, we're acknowledging what happened, we're facing it and then we're choosing to cover it with God's grace, and there's a difference there.

Mac: 20:28

Yes, and maybe to just push it a little bit forward, then I think people resist forgiveness because if it means forgetting, it also means continuing to endure mistreatment or abuse along the way, and that's not what we're saying, right.

Josiah: 20:41

Yeah, I think the problem, like I think one of the main hangups with the idea of forgetting equating to forgiveness, is that it's often leveraged by the people who have done the wrong, that the next time something comes up and you bring it up, that person is going to be like you forgave me, so you're not allowed to bring it up again. You're not allowed to bring it up again.

Mac: 21:06

You're not allowed to bring it up again. I think what you're saying is that this idea that forgiveness, this conflation that forgiveness is forgetting, can actually get weaponized by the person who's done the wrongdoing to not have to attend to themselves and sort of change the way they're relating, moving forward.

Josiah: 21:23

Yes, it is a move out of their own guilt and how they feel about that, to minimize the anxiety that surrounds having to face someone that you have wronged.

Katie: 21:38

Yeah, and true forgiveness or attend to a pattern? Yeah, you're right. I think true forgiveness brings accountability.

Mac: 21:45

Yeah, let me throw a wrench in this one. So I read an author this past year that challenges this point we're discussing. There's a super famous theologian named Miroslav Volf and he wrote a very famous book called Exclusion and Embrace and in it he argues that forgiveness does involve forgetting. And then he builds on that argument on a book that addresses this one thing called the End of Memory. Now, to be fair, he's not saying forgiveness is just erasing our memories, to deny what happened and then giving another person to weaponize that against. He's not saying that. He's way smarter than all of us probably combined.

Mac: 22:30

So but what he anchors it in is sort of an eschatological argument about the new heavens and the new earth. So he argues that in the new heavens and the new earth, our memories of sin and wrongdoing will no longer be needed because everything will be redeemed. Doing will no longer be needed because everything will be redeemed. And he argues that offenses will be forgotten and that they will no longer bear the weight of pain, division or resentment. And that just has me thinking. I have no idea. So you're hearing me think out loud. Theologically, I don't know how to put all that together, but I think there's something to ponder there that maybe this is the trajectory of the new heavens and the new earth, and on this side of heaven there is an importance to forgiving if you're going to continue to experience hurt or wrong, but that the end result is like the redemption of all sin and wrongdoing, and then, therefore, we will be released from the need to protect ourselves through memory. Does that make sense?

Josiah: 23:26

Yeah, it's like forgetting to the degree of which someone is redeemed. Yes, it's like maybe it's proportionate that if someone's fully redeemed in this future state fully redeemed, then I have full confidence in that. I don't need to protect myself in any sort of way, and the less redeemed someone is, the more I do need to protect myself in that sense.

Mac: 23:56

Right, because with your example where it's like, hey, someone did something they just had done that I just forgiven, and now they're like, hey, you can't bring that up because you already forgave me, right? Well, it would also be as a counter example. It would also be unfortunate if something happened in the past. It had been forgiven and I haven't done it since, and that person keeps bringing it up again and again and it's like well, time out, and I've never repeated that action. Does that make sense? So it gets complicated. But for the sake of our conversation, we've named two so far. Forgiveness is not condoning what happened. That's not what forgiveness is about. And forgiveness is not necessarily forgetting what happened, especially if you're still in proximity to someone who's repeating that wrongdoing. Yeah, yeah.

Josiah: 24:43

A third one I would name is forgiveness is not just a one-time event, nor does it happen in an instant. Forgiveness is a continual process that requires you to choose over and over. Anyone who has had to practice forgiving someone from a significant hurt that's caused a lot of damage, you'll know that saying it and choosing it one time at the beginning is not the end result. It is something you have to continually choose to do. I can think of scenarios where you have to forgive someone who won't admit to wronging you in the first place. And choosing to forgive at the beginning is great, but it must be chosen over and over again because it's going to come up over and over again. I think it also exposes if the hang-up is like not wanting to forgive is because your concept is that when I forgive once it's done. I think it also it sort of exposes another question, or maybe a common hangup people have is like did I actually forgive someone if I still have strong feelings about it?

Mac: 26:00

I encounter that one as a pastor quite a bit that I've preached on forgiveness. It comes up as a theme when you're preaching, quite a bit right, Because of how central it is to the gospel. And I've had people over the years come up and as they share hey, I'm really struggling to forgive. So-and-so. I've actually numerous times discerned no, it's not that you're not forgiving this person, it's just that you're still experiencing the pain of what happened to you. And now you've got this voice on your shoulder like, hey, an experience in that pain is wrong. You know what I mean.

Mac: 26:35

And being equated with a lack of forgiveness rather than going, no, what happened to me still hurts. And every time I'm reminded of that hurt or that pain, that's an invitation to once again, instead of returning back to bitterness or resentment or unforgiveness, to maintain this attitude of forgiveness towards this other person. Martin Luther King Jr once said forgiveness is not an occasional act, it's a permanent attitude. In other words, when someone has wronged you that doesn't just stay there. It's likely that you're going to continue to experience the pain of that through triggers or whatever, and when those triggers happen, it's important to be reminded hey, this is a process and I can either go backwards or continue to maintain my forward momentum by maintaining this attitude or posture of forgiveness. By maintaining this attitude or posture of forgiveness, Am I going to pick up this offense that I put down because I was reminded of it, or am I going to stay in this place of releasing and forgiving it Does?

Katie: 27:36

that make sense? It does, yeah, and I guess one thing that sticks out to me is that throughout this conversation, we keep pointing back to God and God's forgiveness and how we receive His forgiveness, and we want to extend that to others. And we're back to God and God's forgiveness and how we receive his forgiveness and we want to extend that to others, and we're going to continue to do that. I think what we're also saying is that we as humans like we're not God we're actually living in this human experience. We're living in human bodies, and so I could imagine someone saying, well, doesn't God forgive us in an instant? And then forget, but similar to your last point about we're living on this side of heaven, right, so we are dealing with human bodies that experience pain and have to process it and process all the emotions with it. So I guess that's just that's a point I would make is, as we look at God and go well, why can't I do what God does? We have to realize how our human experience impacts. That.

Josiah: 28:26

Is that making sense does we have to realize how our human experience impacts. That. Is that making sense? Yeah, and it's also probably what God has to do. I mean, god, we don't stop making mistakes. You know, we don't like. I think that God, I would imagine God has to continually choose to forgive us, like, if you think about it, if our redemption is something that's past, present and future, that means he's continually forgiving us all the time.

Mac: 28:51

Yes, that is true, I also think in sort of evangelical circles where the gospel was sort of reduced to hey, you've done wrong, that's sin, you're separated from God. God sent Jesus, like. We're familiar with this presentation. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just part of it. So far in our conversation we've equated sin with individual wrongdoing I've committed an action that's not okay, and so on.

Mac: 29:18

But in scripture, sin isn't just moral misbehavior, it's actually a power, it's a force that holds us captive. And so, when we think about God's forgiveness, what did Jesus do on the cross? It wasn't just hey, I'm forgiving you for the individual wrongdoing you did. It was actually breaking the power of sin that holds us captive entirely. It was a rescue mission. And so part of the forgiveness that we are called to embody and again, I hope we get into this in future episodes is not just forgiving individual wrongdoings, but it's part of dethroning the power of sin that holds humanity captive in and of itself. In other words, god doesn't just forgive the wrongdoing, he actually sets you free from the thing that led you to do the wrongdoing. Yeah, which is amazing. Yeah, yeah, anyway, tangent over.

Katie: 30:12

That is Well. It makes me think of no, it's a really good point. It makes me think of my next point, which is that forgiveness is not a sign of weakness. I think we can sometimes think that to forgive is to take the weak road. I don't know, but when I think about what Jesus did on the cross, that is like the furthest thing from weakness in my mind, like when he's on the cross and he says, father, forgive them, for they know not what we do. Do I hear that and go like, oh, how weak. No, Like I think of that as one of the most like courageous things I can imagine, like that's kind of a picture of divine strength.

Katie: 30:48

So I want to challenge the assumption that forgiveness is weak. I think holding on to feelings of bitterness and resentment or anger is actually the easier thing, because that feels safe to us. I think it's much, much harder to let those go. And when I think about times in my own life that I've had to forgive someone it certainly was not easy, it was not weak. When I have made, maybe, the choice not to forgive, that's the easy road. Forgiving was the hard thing.

Mac: 31:13

Totally. I've shared this before on the podcast. So a little bleep warning, but my sister is a therapist and when she's working with clients who have experienced a great wrong that they're in process of trying to forgive, she often tells them that forgiveness is way more badass than bitterness and it is. I so believe that I know one woman who, about 10 years into her marriage, discovered her husband was having an affair and as the details came out, it became evident that this wasn't just a one-time incident or just with one person, but this was a pattern throughout the history of their relationship multiple women and this woman in this marriage was a Christian. So, without minimizing the betrayal and the hurt and the pain and all of that, the two of them went on this journey of forgiveness and reconciliation and it looked totally different for them. One had to attend to sort of a sexual addiction and she had to sort of deal with all the anger and the betrayal and all of the emotions that come with that. But, my goodness, they did the hard work. It took several years and they ended up reconciling and they're still together, which is amazing, and their marriage is better than ever before.

Mac: 32:30

But, man, when I think about a story like that. Can you imagine your spouse that kind of betrayal, that patterned betrayal? It'd be so easy to just divorce the other person, to spend the rest of your life sort of trapped in bitterness and resentment and so on, rather than doing the hard work. And maybe you know, it depends Some people, the fact that both of them were willing to attend, that both had to do the work. There might be times where that's not possible, right? But the point is, is that like wow, that's badass. You know, thomas Aquinas said. He's a famous theologian. He said to part in an offense is the mark of a virtuous person, for it belongs to the one who is strong in character to pass over injury. So it's not weakness, if anything. Holding onto bitterness and resentment is a sign of weakness, a deficiency in character. I wonder, like, what it unlocks to think about forgiveness as strength, like I wonder what it unlocks to go okay, like I'm motivated by doing the hard right thing, and this is the hard right thing, you know. So forgiveness, you said Katie, is not a sign of weakness. I think that's powerful.

Mac: 33:47

Another one is that forgiveness is not contingent on the other person. So this is another one I've encountered a lot. Some people think that, hey, I can't forgive the other person because they haven't said that they're sorry, like the other person has to issue an apology in order for me to forgive. But see, the other person may never issue an apology for the wrong that they've done. They might deny that they even did something wrong. They may know that they did something wrong and not even care.

Mac: 34:19

I know some people, as a pastor, who they're struggling to forgive someone who's no longer even alive. So what do you do in that instance, right? So I want to say that forgiveness doesn't hang on the other person at all. Reconciliation does that requires both people, but forgiveness really just starts with you. You can forgive another person no matter what the other person does, and in that sense, forgiveness even when the other person doesn't apologize or own their crap sets you free, right. When you refuse to, when the other person doesn't apologize or own their crap sets you free. When you refuse to forgive the other person, thinking like, oh, it's contingent upon them, you're sort of being held captive. To forgive somebody is to say one way or another, you're not going to destroy me.

Josiah: 35:04

You're not going to still hold me captive. Yeah, I think that we have to reverse the power dynamic. In our mind we think holding it against them gives us power, but I think forgiving before the other person apologizes actually does a work of disarming the other person. Yes, that you're building up your defenses by building all these barriers and coming up with all these reasons why you'll never forgive them and you hate them and all these things and you feel like you build this wall of defense against them.

Josiah: 35:41

But all that does is perpetuate fighting and incivility and stuff like that. So I think that linking it to the last point is we have to shift our paradigm, we have to flip it around, just as we have to realize forgiveness is not weakness, it's actually strength, when we can leverage forgiveness in a way that actually can disarm the other person and de-escalate situations.

Mac: 36:00

Yeah, dude, like there's that old saying I don't even know who it's accredited to but like refusing to forgive is like drinking poison, hoping the other person gets sick. Yeah, and the truth is and there's so many studies around this that when we refuse to forgive, it actually negatively impacts us. It can negatively impact us physically, emotionally, in a real sense, refusing to forgive is detrimental to our own health. There's a famous theologian, william Barclay. He once said to forgive is to fling open the door of the prisoner and to discover that the prisoner was you. So I really like that idea of like no, you're actually flipping things by restoring your agency. You know what I mean. Yeah.

Katie: 36:45

Yeah, I've heard an analogy in the same vein, that holding onto a grudge is like having a chain that ties you to the other person. But forgiveness is like breaking that chain. It's an act of reclaiming your joy and your peace.

Josiah: 36:57

Yeah, I like what you said about the autonomy piece or agency Sorry, that was the word you used. Forgiveness is reclaiming your own agency. Forgiveness is reclaiming your own agency rather than being your piece, being contingent on what the other person chooses. I choose something and I have that agency, and not only is that helping free me, but it also executes like a real spiritual power of forgiving the other person and initiating other processes that are so important.

Mac: 37:30

Dude, you're on it. There's something I don't like when people say, hey, forgiveness is just for me, right, they're trying to correct this thing that way. No, forgiveness is for you, you're setting yourself free too, but it also is setting the other person free. You're both being set free. I was talking to your mom, katie, recently about forgiveness and she told me a story that kind of captivated my attention. It dovetails on what you're saying, josiah, about, like hey, there's something, a spiritual dynamic to this freedom. She was working with a client who was struggling with forgiveness or didn't want to forgive, and, if I remember correctly, the substance of it was they prayed forgiveness and this other person that they were praying forgiveness over was refusing to acknowledge and do all this stuff. Point is, right after that, like within a couple hours after they got done praying, that other person who had this unresolved called and apologized.

Katie: 38:32

Yeah, she told me that story. Yeah, it's.

Mac: 38:34

Almost like hold up Holy smokes, Like something was on. It seems like something was unlocked there in the spiritual realm, so like when we refuse to forgive. I don't know this for sure, but when we refuse to forgive, we're holding ourselves captive and them. And when we release, when we forgive, it not only frees us, but perhaps something is happening in the spiritual realm that also frees them.

Josiah: 38:55

Yeah, and that's the picture of God's love and his nature. Like we didn't love him first, While we were still sinners.

Josiah: 39:04

Christ died for us this concept that God loves us fully and intimately well before we have any chance to choose it for ourselves. So we can demonstrate that love towards other people by choosing to forgive, regardless of how they respond to it. Yep, yeah, all right. Another one is forgiveness is not rescuing the other person from their consequences. Yeah, a common misconception. Trusting the other person who has wronged you is not a prerequisite for forgiving them. So forgiving someone doesn't mean that all of the work for repairing the relationships has been done, and separating those two from not being synonymous with each other is really important.

Josiah: 40:00

Often, the hangup we have is in order for me to forgive them, I feel like I have to trust them to be close to me again. I can't have any defenses up, I can't take steps to do all of these things. And in reality, it does two things. One is it keeps us from feeling like I can let go and still have healthy boundaries. I can let go and still have healthy boundaries. The other thing that it does is it has the it can often have the work of if you is trying to sweep it under the rug.

Josiah: 40:40

I know a church that went through a scenario in which one of the pastors had sort of sexually harassed someone who was like a volunteer, sexually harassed someone who was like a volunteer.

Josiah: 40:51

And when this person came forward and mentioned it, it got dealt with right away in the sense that it was addressed and then it was talked about and in some ways, like it was, it was, it was good.

Josiah: 41:04

But then once the forgiveness was supposed to be issued, essentially it was just required that everyone just move on with their lives and there were consequences done for this pastor, but the hurt wasn't attended to and they ended up getting reinstated and they were still then serving and they were asked to just go to church with this person who had wronged them.

Josiah: 41:35

Quite significantly, there was trust broken, major trust broken. But when this person tried to say, no, I don't feel comfortable with that, or needed more time to heal, no, I don't feel comfortable with that, or needed more time to heal, essentially they were sort of forced into this like, well, you know, like you have a problem with unforgiveness, you need to let it go. Wow, and the issue this person was taking and I think maybe people listening could relate to this it's not that they weren't willing to forgive, it was, it seems, like the consequences for this person's actions. The natural consequences were sort of protected from them. They were protected from the things that they needed to do to repair. That would have been necessary to rebuild trust, not only for this person but for, like, the entire leadership team.

Mac: 42:25

Yeah, you just used a word that I think I'd want to double click on. You said natural consequences. I would often use a word intrinsic consequences, because sometimes we think of the way we think about consequences matter In our context, in our culture. We often, especially in parenting, we think, oh, there's extrinsic consequences we use which is not related to the behavior at all. So like punishment punishment right Like I grew up and in my home I got spanked if I did something wrong. Okay, but getting spanked in no way connected to the behavior itself. It was like just the consequence for doing something you weren't supposed to do. That's very different than a consequence that's intrinsic to the behavior itself.

Mac: 43:13

And when we say forgiveness is not rescuing the other person from consequences that's what I have in mind is intrinsic consequences. So, for instance, let's say one of my kid tells a lie and then gets caught in that lie and we attend to that together and I say I forgive you, there's still an intrinsic reality to that misbehavior, even though I'm forgiving the wrong you're doing. Well, lying erodes trust and I can't rescue you from the fact that, like now, some trust has been eroded that needs to be regained. Maybe another example would be.

Mac: 43:48

As a pastor, I've counseled people of broken marriages and if a couple, for instance, breaks up because one of them was unfaithful, right, and they have an affair and then end up with that other person, and that ends up throwing the whole family dynamic off. Now you're doing parenting rhythms and all this stuff right. There's a sense in which time out there's no way I can free you from the fact that now you can't be together as a family all the time. We can forgive the offense, I can forgive that the affair happened, for instance but I can't take away the fact that, like that fundamentally altered life as it is, it's built into the wrongdoing itself does that make sense if people are honest?

Josiah: 44:31

I think that it. It erodes trust, even within the new relationship it was the whole premise of the relationship was built on lies and deception. So now you have to learn how to retrust someone else and then you know it can get leveraged against you if you don't trust them on the other side.

Mac: 44:53

Right. So I think that's important. Sometimes we think forgiveness is like hey, we're just going to like wipe the slate clean as if it didn't happen, when in actuality, what happened might still have some consequences that carry into the future, and forgiveness isn't saying that those consequences that carry into the future, the intrinsic consequences, are somehow negated or or shouldn't happen.

Katie: 45:15

yes, right yeah, and another one. I guess maybe the last one I would name is that forgiveness is also not the same thing as reconciliation. Mac, you mentioned this earlier, but forgiveness and reconciliation are different. I think they're different in some really significant ways. I see forgiveness as kind of a one-way street, like forgiveness is something that I can do. Reconciliation is something that really takes both parties to step into, like the example you shared of the couple and there was an affair and they both stepped into it, wanting to pursue reconciliation.

Katie: 45:49

I saw one quote that said imagine forgiveness is like opening the door of your heart and letting bitterness leave. Reconciliation is inviting someone back in. One can happen without the other. We can open the door of our heart and let the bitterness and resentment go without actually inviting the person back in, and I think that's just an important point, that it requires both people to acknowledge the harm and work towards reconciling trust. This will likely include setting boundaries and accountability.

Katie: 46:17

All of that is necessary to reconcile because reconciliation requires trust, and trust is something that takes time to rebuild. So, if you're sitting there thinking well, if I've forgiven, why doesn't our relationship look the same? Or why do I still feel the pain of this person? If maybe they're continuing to wrong me, but have I not forgiven them, why do I keep feeling pain around it? Well, there might be more work that has to be done in order to truly reconcile that relationship, and that's going to really depend on how the person that hurt you is is responding and taking responsibility and truly changing right Like are they truly demonstrating a commitment to change? Are they redeemed? To draw back to an earlier concept we talked about Big picture.

Mac: 47:01

I totally agree that forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation and, kind of going back to the language of agency, forgiveness is you have agency. Reconciliation requires both people exercising agency. You said something, katie, that I'm not entirely sure about and I would love to open it up just to go. Huh, I wonder about that. You said reconciliation involves trust, and that just makes me curious. Yes, I guess I see, and we'll get into this more in future episodes and feel free to disagree with me but I see reconciliation as two people saying I've done a wrong or been the recipient of a wrong and I'm going to own that. Like two people coming together and apologizing where apologizing is needed and extending forgiveness. That's reconciliation. But trust is about then moving forward in relationship with someone else.

Katie: 48:01

Yeah so maybe there's a distinction between reconciliation and repair. Maybe repair is another level that can be a step beyond reconciliation. I hear what you're saying. Yeah, I wouldn't disagree with that. Like if you can't if the person, if you can't really, if you don't have reason to trust the person again, you can still reconcile. Yeah, I think that's fair.

Mac: 48:21

Okay, that's what I was kind of getting at is to go okay, but I can think of some people in my life I'd be, I'm not reconciled with, I'd like to be. It requires both of us leaning in with agency. That other person may not be ready for that or whatever. But I have no interest in trying to rebuild trust with that person long-term kind of doing that repair work. I'm interested in reconciliation. We're right, we're no longer holding that against each other and we're moving on. We're rightly related now. But that doesn't necessarily involve, it doesn't necessitate repair, rebuilding trust and kind of getting back in proximity with each other.

Katie: 48:57

Yeah, I think that's fair.

Josiah: 48:58

Yeah, like forgiveness, our trust becomes like a. It sort of is produced with the process of reconciliation and over time and commitment, it's something that's built.

Katie: 49:10

And I think Mac's saying maybe it is, maybe it isn't right.

Josiah: 49:13

Yeah, there's another choice.

Mac: 49:14

Maybe it doesn't get there.

Mac: 49:15

Yeah, yeah, it's almost like I imagine these steps and we'll get into this in future episodes. But there's like forgiveness which is on you. There's, reconciliation requires both of you. And then, after reconciliation, there's like this question of and how much is there going to be a continued relationship, which would require trust, and trust is restored through consistent behavior over time. Let me summarize, because we've named hey a lot of people. Josiah, you started by saying hey. I think some people resist forgiveness because they confuse forgiveness with something that it's not, and we've spent some time naming what some of those common misconceptions are, so let me review them. Forgiveness is not condoning what happened. Forgiveness is not forgetting what happened. It's not a one-time event, nor does it happen in an instant. Forgiveness is not a sign of weakness, actually the opposite. Forgiveness is not contingent on the other person. It's not rescuing the other person from intrinsic or natural consequences. And then, lastly, it shouldn't be confused with reconciliation. Those two aren't the same. And then, lastly, it shouldn't be confused with reconciliation.

Josiah: 50:26

Those two aren't the same. That capture it. Yeah. Yeah, I like that list. It's really extensive. So we've named what it isn't, which is important. I think of the passage in is it 1 Corinthians, the love, chapter 13. Yes, where Paul names all love, the love, chapter 13. Yes, um, where, uh, paul names all the things that that love isn't? Yes, but he also names what it is, yeah, and so, um, I think of it this way, like, hey, we're naming everything for forgiveness isn't. So let's take some time, let's identify what it is and then come up with a definition.

Mac: 51:02

Um, yeah, I'll tell you, I was trying to put together a definition. It was a little tricky, and the reason why is because I don't think there's just one definition that everyone agrees on. That doesn't exist. So what I did was I pulled some quotes from some famous theologians people who are way smarter than I am and I've got four of them and I just want to read them and see what it provokes for the two of you. What do you like? What don't you like? Whatever, I have no idea what it will provoke for you. Just kind of, hey, this is what that stirs up in me. Okay, so four of them, and then I'm going to supply a definition at the end. Okay, my best attempt Okay, first quote by Dallas Willard to D Willie forgiveness is letting the other person off the hook. What do you think?

Katie: 51:52

I mean, I think, yeah, I think there's a sense in which that's true. I have a really hard time disagreeing with Dallas Willard. Can I just say that I don't. I feel no way, in no way equipped, careful, but, um, I also feel like we just said a lot of things in the past 45 minutes to an hour that fill that out, that it's not entirely letting the person off the hook. There's a lot more involved in that.

Josiah: 52:14

Yeah, I mean, it's a punchy statement and it's thought-provoking. I would imagine that if he was sitting here he wouldn't say that that is the complete, expanded view of what forgiveness is. He's trying to reduce it down in a punchy, thought-provoking statement, so I yeah, yeah.

Mac: 52:33

So maybe the weakness I hear from you guys is it could carry or be interpreted as a sweep, like kind of that magic wand thing. Yes, that we started saying. And yeah, dallas Willard is smarter than all of us, so I imagine he is more. It's more nuanced than that. Yeah, Right, okay.

Mac: 52:51

Got it. It is hard to disagree with D Willie. Here's another one, another beloved theologian and commentator, and T right. Why don't we hear from him? He said forgiveness is looking at the truth of the hurt and pain, not pretending it didn't happen or it didn't matter and not letting it determine the future. What does that provoke for you?

Katie: 53:21

I like the idea of looking at the truth of the hurt and pain. Right, we talked about how oftentimes we can think forgiveness is minimizing or condoning. But God tells the full truth about us, no matter how messy and ugly it is, and I think that's really important. I think it's really important to look at the truth of the hurt and pain when he says it's not letting it determine the future. Again, I think we filled that out by going well sometimes determine the future Again, I think we filled that out by going well sometimes. Sometimes we have to determine how we move forward based on where the other person's at how deep the wound was. Are they making commitments to change? I think there's a whole lot that would fill out that last piece for me.

Josiah: 53:56

Yeah, I like that. It's open-ended. Um, I like that. The you know, you're, you're. He's essentially saying that, um, if I look at the opposite of what he's saying, if I am letting it determine my future, I have made a preset judgment that what this person did to wrong me equals this and forgiveness opens the door to changing that future. Rather than me judging what's going to happen, yeah, that's a good point.

Mac: 54:27

Yeah, I think that last phrase requires some filling out. It doesn't have to determine the future. That could be conflated or confused with oh, then we're just moving on and it didn't happen, and again what we've talked about for the last 45 minutes or so would say no, that's not actually it. But I don't think that's what he's saying. I think he's saying it doesn't have to be the determining thing for the future. It's now open to new possibilities, right? Yeah.

Mac: 54:58

All right, two more, two more. This one's by Tim Keller, Kind of jumping into the reformed circle for a moment. He said forgiveness is a form of voluntary suffering in which you absorb the debt someone else owes you and release them from liability to pay.

Katie: 55:21

What do you guys think? Forgiveness is a form of voluntary suffering. I agree with that. It certainly does feel like suffering that you're choosing to take on, but, man, it kind of feels like you suffer. Either way, whether you're choosing to forgive or not forgive, there's going to be some suffering. So, in a way, choose your path. Pick your pain.

Katie: 55:42

Pick your pain. Either you do choose to absorb the debt someone else owes you um, or you choose to suffer by hanging on to bitterness and resentment, which I would say is even worse, A lot worse.

Josiah: 55:55

Yeah, Absorbing the debt. I think, uh, you, they, they only are problematic. If you feel like, um, you're uh, believing some of the, the false definitions of it, you know what I mean. Like if I, like I could pick any of them, like, uh, you know, I'm absorbing the debt in my mind. I'm like, well, does that mean like they don't have consequences for their actions? Right, so, like I. I'm like, well, does that mean like they don't have consequences for their actions? Right, so like I. I feel like I can, you can take some and be like, oh, I'll try to poke a hole. Or like, if I'm, if I have baggage from, from not not being able to forgive in a certain way, um, it can be difficult to read, but I uh, yeah, yeah, I don't know how I feel about this one. Yeah, yeah.

Josiah: 56:40

I don't know how I feel about this one.

Mac: 56:43

I do like the suffering piece. I think that okay, in Jesus forgiving us went to the cross, so there's some cruciformity to forgiveness You're bearing the burden of someone else's wrongdoing. I like the debt language to a degree. Sometimes I think we have a tendency to spiritualize or moralize some of the teachings of Jesus and sort of miss out on the practicality. So when we talk about debts we immediately go to like a moral offense, a wrongdoing, something. But like in the first century, it might have just actually been a debt. Like, oh, someone owes you something and you're releasing them of that. Like kind of just like the parable I started with. It wasn't there's a tangible sort of monetary piece to it, but again, like from releasing them from the liability of pay could be mistaken or confused with releasing them from any impact on the future. Yeah, just like the NT Wright one. All right, one more. This is from Karl Barth, again famous theologian. He said forgiveness is not the denial of wrongdoing but the radical affirmation that, through God's grace, wrongdoing does not have the last word.

Josiah: 57:59

I like that one. It's less expansive, but I feel good about that one.

Katie: 58:07

Yeah, I like the phrase wrongdoing doesn't have the last word, because to me that sounds like the gospel.

Mac: 58:16

Let me take a stab at a definition. Obviously, it's not going to be perfect.

Katie: 58:23

To add yourself to the list of famous theologians. I had to quote by how presumptuous.

Mac: 58:29

No, this is just me trying to gather up, like the best of all the nuance we've discussed and even these definitions. So forgiveness is the intentional process of choosing to no longer count another person's sin or wrongdoing against them. It's the cancellation of a debt owed without the need for payment, to open up the door to the possibility of reconciliation. So maybe to slow it down or break it apart a little bit, here's some of the key components I would want to highlight of my own definition. It's a choice. It doesn't just happen, you have to choose it. It's a process. It's something that you might have to choose, not just once, but repeatedly.

Mac: 59:11

It is acknowledging the wrongdoing. You're not sweeping it under the rug. You're acknowledging the full truth of what happened, but then there is a cancellation of the debt. Mercy gets the last word rather than wrongdoing. It's not exacting vengeance. You'll notice that. It's releasing bitterness and resentment, and it's not required that reconciliation is going to result. It just opens up the possibility for it, because that would require the other person. So what do you think? What would you add? What would you disagree with? What would you emphasize? Where do you want to humble me?

Josiah: 59:51

I, yeah, I like it.

Mac: 59:54

Adam, I mean, feel free to get a jab in here.

Katie: 59:58

It's similar to the Karl Barth quote. I love how you said mercy gets the last word because, again, I think we mess up and commit wrongdoing against God every single day and that's what God tells us. Like he looks at us and says I'm choosing to let my mercy have the final word, and so we're choosing in that to receive what God has offered us and then extending that towards others and this is how the gospel think spreads right Like we can. When I think about sharing the gospel or evangelizing like when, when I truly step into forgiving someone and allowing mercy to have the final word, I think that's how we share the love of Jesus around us. So I think that's just a really powerful picture.

Josiah: 1:00:38

Yeah, I, I think it's good. I um, you know, I think of. I think when I read this and after all of our talking, I think it's good. I think of when I read this and after all of our talking, I think of the concept of judgment. Jesus invites us to judge, not lest you be judged right. The measure you're judging others is what's used to judge you, and I don't know when you line that up with forgiveness. Is forgiveness protecting a wrongdoer from consequences? No, Does it mean that they don't have to repair? No, but I am willing to let go of my judgment of the other person and holding the wrongdoing against them could be equated with judging by saying I've written you off, Like there's no hope for you. You will not change, and forgiveness says I believe they could.

Mac: 1:01:36

Ah, so there's like a hopeful forgiveness is hopeful.

Josiah: 1:01:38

Yeah, it restores this hope in that I can see the intrinsic value of this person as an image bearer, even in the face of everything they've done wrong. I am not going to judge their ultimate outcome based on this wrongdoing they have done, and I'm choosing to say that I think they could change and I hope that for them.

Mac: 1:02:11

Yeah, dude, and and part of my definition was borrowing or inspired from second Corinthians five that whole idea not counting uh wrongdoing against them, like this is what God does for us and that invites us to be ministers or uh, ambassadors of reconciliation ourselves. Invites us to be ministers or ambassadors of reconciliation ourselves. This is the hope of the gospel. There's a redemptive arc that we're invited to embody with our lives. To go no, forgiveness is the embodiment of our hope that our wrongdoing doesn't get the last word, that the telos. The end is beautiful, it's redemption, it's wholeness, it's shalom. You know I love it.

Mac: 1:02:49

This series. We're going to continue to build this out. We have more to say about how we get stuck, you know, in unforgiveness, and then we're going to spend a lot of time walking through some of the primary components or steps that forgiveness involves. So if you're listening to this, just know we're kind of at square one and we've got a lot to build out in this series that we hope you'll be able to join us with. But let's transition, before we depart, to practice time. In light of our conversation, guys, what would you and gals? In light of our conversation, guys, what would you and gals, what would you say here's something someone could do to actually embody or practice forgiveness in the way of Jesus.

Katie: 1:03:33

We had my mom in here a couple episodes ago and she talked about the importance of journaling.

Mac: 1:03:38

Moleskine.

Katie: 1:03:39

Yep getting the moleskine if you're fancy.

Josiah: 1:03:42

Hold on. It's pronounced moleskine what.

Adam: 1:03:46

No, I remember. I don't know how true this is, but I remember back when they were kind of a new thing, I had heard that the CEO, or whoever created the name intentionally, didn't want to give a proper pronunciation and just leave people with their own interpretation of it.

Katie: 1:04:07

It sounds like an Enneagram four. Yeah, no one's going to know how to say this. It is that unique.

Mac: 1:04:13

Everybody gets to embody uniqueness.

Josiah: 1:04:17

Yeah, and they'll all be wrong, no matter what they say Okay, back to journaling.

Katie: 1:04:25

Yeah, I used to journal a lot. I think that kind of fell off when I had kids. I still do a little bit, but not nearly as much. But I think I would say, journaling about a time that you experienced deep forgiveness, especially on the receiving end, I think can be really powerful.

Katie: 1:04:42

When we had my mom on the podcast she talked about how journaling helps, like, process emotions and it can help you kind of go back to that experience and remember what it felt like. And so if you take some time just to journal to think back, reflect and maybe journal about a time that you were a recipient of forgiveness, there's such power in that I think it can help remember what it felt like. It can help us remember what it felt like to receive grace and to mercy, to have a debt covered and the freedom that came from that to be able to move forward. And so I think when we remember receiving that and feeling all those emotions, it can equip us and give us imagination for extending that to other people and not only like, okay, I guess I can do this now, but in some ways it can actually, I think, sometimes make us excited to extend that freedom to someone else because we remember how powerful it was to be on the receiving end of that. So I would say, yeah, I think journaling can be really helpful here.

Mac: 1:05:40

My brother-in-law got me a journal for Christmas this year.

Katie: 1:05:44

Was it a Moleskine? It was not a Moleskine.

Mac: 1:05:46

Or a Moleskine. It was Moleskine-like, like kind of hardcover, same kind of concept, and it came with like a super duper fancy pen. So I can't remember the brand, but Nice yeah.

Katie: 1:05:58

Well, I got my brother-in-law a Moleskine.

Mac: 1:06:01

Oh nice.

Josiah: 1:06:06

So hopefully he's listening. I think it's moleskine, I think that's how you say it. Got it. I'm just going to correct everybody who says it no matter what, that won't be obnoxious at all.

Josiah: 1:06:14

No, I like that. I think that you have to get acquainted with your story and a deeper understanding of that is really important. Another practice is to simply just identify someone in your life that you struggle to forgive. Um, and I would encourage you, don't go too far down the road. I mean, if you're, if you're following along with the series, um, we're going to get a lot more into the nitty gritty of what forgiveness can look like and trying to paint a picture and some steps.

Josiah: 1:06:49

Um, but just identify maybe one person or maybe there's multiple people that, like I, struggle to forgive or to know if I forgive in or how much to go down the road and identify and then talk about it, or maybe you add it to journaling practice. This might be easy to identify for the big ones, but I was thinking about this and I think that's often better for us to start with really smaller hurts and pains from people where there's already built in relational safety. Starting with reps from smaller things can help us try to get our bearings for what it looks like and it sort of builds this momentum when you feel that the release from being able to forgive someone from something small and you sense we've sort of cleared the air and I'm not holding on to it anymore. It can sort of give us a momentum and a vision for what it could look like to do it for maybe the bigger hurts in our lives.

Mac: 1:07:42

Yeah, I like that, like to do it for maybe the bigger hurts in our lives, yeah, I like that. Maybe if you have a bigger person that you're like I don't know if I've forgiven them or I'm struggling to note that and maybe hold that out as we journey through this series because we're going to give you some action steps as we progress, but I like what you're saying is like what helps us attend to the bigger ones is to build confidence with the smaller ones. So final one is, I would say learn from others. Friends become acquainted with a story of forgiveness and action, and this could be with someone you know. You just saw them maybe endure a big hurt or wrong and then they move to forgiveness and you get really familiar with their story as a way of inspiration. Of course, there's also some really famous stories of forgiveness and I was actually thinking we should feature we should maybe do a feature story in future episodes of like a really, you know, like a Ruby Bridges or Corrie Ten Boom or like. So maybe we can note that.

Mac: 1:08:39

Like let's do a feature story of forgiveness in our future series, just to go. And here's what we're talking about. Like this is why it's powerful.

Katie: 1:08:48

Yeah, I love that idea.

Josiah: 1:08:50

Awesome, well, um, this has been awesome. You guys. I'm really excited to get the series started. I feel like there's there's so much substance to this and so much it's so much application. We spent a lot of time today looking at what forgiveness isn't and sort of dispelling some of the myths or misconceptions we have around it hangups that we often have and then, after going through what it is, mac took a stab at defining forgiveness and I thought I'd read it as we close today. Forgiveness is the intentional process of choosing to no longer count another person's sin or wrongdoing against them. It's the cancellation of a debt owed without the need for repayment, to open up the door to the possibility of reconciliation.

Mac: 1:09:43

Next time, we are going to start by naming the biggest thing that gets in the way of forgiveness, namely what we refer to as the cycle of enemy making. Okay, so thanks for joining us today, and we hope you'll tune in next time.

Adam: 1:10:04

Praxis is recorded and produced at Crosspoint Community Church. You can find out more about day and we hope you'll tune in next time. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

‍