One of the biggest stumbling blocks to inner healing is unforgiveness.
When we have been deeply hurt by other people, hearing someone say, “You just need to forgive,” can almost feel impossible. Most of us grew up learning that forgiveness is an act of obedience. Jesus tells us to forgive. [Matthew 6:14-15; Matthew 18:21-22; Ephesians 4:31-32. NIV] The difficult part is that it can feel as though our permission has been taken away twice. First, we never gave anyone permission to hurt us. Then, after all the pain, we are told that we have to forgive them as well. It can almost feel as though we are letting them off the hook or excusing what they did. But that is not what forgiveness is.
Imagine that every one of us walks through life carrying a backpack. Every time someone hurts me, I pick up a rock and put it into my backpack. Every time I choose to hold onto unforgiveness, another rock goes in. After years of hurt, my backpack becomes incredibly heavy. It hurts my shoulders. It strains my back. I become exhausted carrying a weight that was never meant to stay with me. Then one day I stop and look around. The people who hurt me are walking around without carrying my backpack. My unforgiveness is not weighing them down. They continue with their lives while I am the one carrying the burden.
Then forgiveness begins. Every time I forgive, I take one rock out of my backpack and lay it down. The backpack becomes lighter. My shoulders begin to straighten. I can walk further. I can climb higher. I have more strength than before. People around me may even notice the difference. “Why does she (or he) seem lighter? Why can she keep going when others are struggling?” Because I am no longer carrying what God never intended me to carry. That is what forgiveness does. Forgiveness is God’s gift to us before it becomes a gift to anyone else. It does not always change the person who hurt us. But it changes the one who has been carrying the weight.
I want us to look at some people in the Bible who had every reason to hold onto unforgiveness yet chose a different path. Their stories remind us that we are not the first people to wrestle with betrayal, rejection, loss, or deep hurt. Perhaps, as we walk alongside them, we will discover that forgiveness is not about pretending nothing happened. It is about finally putting down the rocks we were never meant to carry.
Let’s look at one of my favourite people in the Bible: Joseph. [Genesis 37 – 45 NIV]. Most of us know his story, but sometimes we read it so quickly that we forget what he actually lived through. Joseph was the second youngest of his brothers at the time, (a real “laatlammetjie” as we call it in Afrikaans), the favourite son of his father, and, if we’re honest, probably a little immature. He told his (much) older brothers about the dreams God had given him, dreams that showed they would one day bow before him. It isn’t difficult to understand why his brothers became angry and jealous. Their jealousy and annoyance led them far beyond anger.
First, they threw him into a pit. Then they sold him as a slave to foreign travelling merchants. Finally, they went home and convinced their father that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal. Jacob mourned the loss of his son for years, probably traumatized by his beloved young son dying a horrific death.
Now think about Joseph’s journey. He didn’t only have to forgive his brothers once. He had to forgive them for throwing him into the pit. He had to forgive them for selling him, a rich heir, into slavery. He had to forgive them for taking him away from his father and his younger brother. He had to forgive them for stealing years he could never get back with his family. Then life continued. When he became a slave in Potiphar’s house, he probably had to forgive them again. When he was falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife and thrown into prison, he may well have had to forgive them again. When he sat forgotten in prison after helping others, the pain of where it had all begun must have resurfaced again. Even after God raised him to become second in command over Egypt, he was still a Hebrew living in a foreign land. Although he had authority and honour, he was still separated from his own family and homeland.
Every new consequence of his brothers’ choices could have reopened the old wound. Joseph would likely have had to forgive his brothers over and over as each new consequence of their betrayal unfolded.
Then came the moment when his brothers stood before him. The Bible tells us Joseph was deeply moved. He wept more than once before finally revealing who he was. That tells us that forgiveness doesn’t always mean the memories no longer hurt. Sometimes you had truly forgiven, yet seeing the people again brings all those old emotions rushing back. Joseph chose not to take revenge. Instead, he said, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good…” [Genesis 50:20 NIV]. Joseph didn’t deny what they had done. He didn’t pretend it wasn’t evil. He simply refused to let their sin become the weight he carried for the rest of his life.
That is what forgiveness looks like. In real life it is usually a decision that we keep reaffirming whenever the wound is touched again. That’s exactly what Joseph’s example illustrates.
Joseph is only one example. The Bible is full of ordinary people who wrestled with forgiveness, guilt, shame, betrayal, rejection and restoration. The older brother in the story of the prodigal son who probably struggled to forgive his brother for leaving him with the responsibility of doing the work of two men on the farm and taking care of his father and family alone. [Luke 15:25-32 NIV].
There is King David, who only admitted the damage he had done after being confronted by the prophet Nathan. He deprived a wife to grow old with the man she married, he deprived a husband to defend his wife and marriage by setting him up to be killed (Uriah) and then had his and Bathsheba’s baby died as a consequence of his, David’s, life being spared. [2 Samuel 12 NIV].
There is Peter, who denied Jesus three times, and had to live with immense guilt after Jesus died [Matt.26:75 NIV], because he realised what he had done, but could not go an apologise to Jesus, as he had died. I think that is why Peter ran to the grave after he heard that Jesus was risen from death [John 20:4] – probably to get the chance to ask forgiveness and get relief from immense quilt for what he had done. Later we see how being forgiven change Peter’s life. [John 21:15-19 NIV].
Then there is also the disciple Stephen, who forgave the very people who were stoning him as he died and interceding for them before God [Acts 7:54-60 NIV]. There are many more examples like these in the Bible that we can examine and learn from.