Unforgiveness? …What’s your “batting average”?
Unforgiveness? Okay, what’s your “batting average”? For all of you who have never played baseball, nor collected baseball cards as a kid, nor even like to watch…the official definition of a batting average is, “the average performance of a batter, expressed as a ratio of a batter's safe hits per official times at bat.” Yes, I hear you, “What part of I never played baseball, nor ever watch…did you not understand?” Simply put: a “batting average” is a “number” based on the amount of times a player comes up to bat, gets a hit, and then gets on base. Now if you don’t know what I am talking about when I say, “comes to bat, get’s a hit, or gets on base”…don’t frustrate yourself ! …And just forget the illustration!
How well you you think you do with “forgiveness”? Is it a struggle? Have anything you think you have never recovered from? And as a result…never forgiven? …Forgiveness? How often do you think you get on the “base of forgiveness” - after being hit with some unkind action, or words (spoken to you, or behind your back) by others that you never saw coming? Again. Is forgiveness a struggle?
Ever wondered why God does everything He can…TO GET YOU TO FORGIVE?
Ever asked yourself…why forgiveness is so important to God? Is it because it’s just one of His rules? Like our parents often said, “Just because I said so!”? Listen closely. God isn’t like any human. He doesn’t have an ego problem. Nor something He feels He has to prove to Himself. He’s not like that. He’s not like you or me. He only wants you to forgive - because He knows what unforgiveness will do to you!
Now maybe before we look at an answer for why forgiveness is so important to God - there is a more important question that needs to be answered. …WHAT IS FORGIVENESS?
First REALIZE: forgiveness never is saying that some wrong done to you was okay! Nor that what happened to you was not as bad as you thought! But then if not...what is forgiveness? Maybe all of our answers are all found in a look at how God forgives us!
When God describes His own forgiveness of you or me - one of the characteristics of His type of forgiveness is revealed in scripture, when He said over and over, “Your sins I will remember no more”! (Hebrews 8:12, Isaiah 43:25, Hebrews 10:17, Jeremiah 31:34, Psalm 103:12, …Need I go on?) WHAT? God doesn’t remember our sins? Really? Now does that mean that God has some sort of “divine amnesia” after you or I sin? Some sort of memory loss? No, don’t be silly - of course not.
Now read this carefully. When God forgives you, He makes a sort of gentleman’s agreement with you. …That from the moment you turn from whatever your sin is – from that point on – God promises, He will never bring up your failings in a conversation with you again! Nor ever use them to prove His point. …Or to win an argument with you. ...As we humans usually do.
So if God describes His forgiveness of us this way, then doesn’t that mean true forgiveness (on our part) must always contain the action of you or me making a decision to no longer mentally go back and relive in our mind the failures of others? Nor the hurts someone has done to us? And to also stop our habit of bringing up their failures to others - when we speak of them. …Or reminding them of their failures just as an advantage point to win our arguments with them?
Now why is the action and habit of no longer thinking about all of the awful things others have done to us - so important? Listen closely. Whether you know it or not - every time you make a choice to remember the wrongs (other have done to you) - you are making a choice to relive those experiences! And the reality of that decision is – YOU ARE RE-WOUNDING YOURSELF OVER AND OVER AND OVER - AGAIN AND AGAIN!
And worst of all? Whatever hurts were done by others, that you are not forgiving, that you do not make a decision to stop thinking about, reliving, or bringing up in conversation – those unforgiven wounds are now REDEFINING who you are!
And tragically, WITHOUT OYU EVEN KNOWING IT - they are also slowly destroying all of your relationships!
HOW? Because now in an effort to not be wounded again, you ARE and HAVE created boundaries in your life! Boundaries, that unknowingly to you - are preventing those you love, and desperately need to love you - from ever getting close to you!
And how is it affecting your future? You now have a tendency to misread, and misjudge the actions of others. And as a result, now in your mind you are convinced…they are as untrustworthy as those who actually hurt you!
And the result? In the end – even those who love you - will leave you! And the final photo taken and shown…will be one of you now living in your own self-created loneliness.
Why does God want so desperately for you to completely forgive? Because He knows unforgiveness will slowly deform you into a hideous creature. And in the end…you will look nothing like the noble creature He intended you to be!
What wounds from others have you allowed to change who you are? Look into that mirror. …Like what you see?
One good thing about God - is that transformation of His creation, His creatures…can happen in a moment of time - in the blink of an eye. From one moment in time a hideous, deformed, almost unrecognizable as human - can now become so glorious a creation that few will even remember who they once were!
Need some time to rethink? To regroup? To change course? Some time to forgive? To really forgive? Ready to stop reliving your painful past?
Come on...rethink forgiveness today! And STOP your self-created cycle of self-abuse!