FORGIVE FIRST

The Key To Real Reconciliation

“Will you forgive me? I’m so sorry I hurt you. I’ll try to never do that again.”

When someone is repentant and asks for forgiveness most people are willing to extend grace. But, what if your offender is not repentant and did not ask for forgiveness? Would you be able to find it in your heart to forgive the person anyway?

Our AMFM Focus group consists of couples who are committed to reconciling crisis marriages. We (Joe and Michelle Williams) reconciled after being separated for two years in 1987; Clint and Penny Bragg remarried each other nearly five years ago after being divorced for eleven years; and Gary and Mona Shriver survived unfaithfulness in their marriage. All of us have authored books based on our reconciled marriages and we offer support for churches who want to begin reconciliation ministries. We have all learned from experience that forgiveness is the key to real reconciliation. But, one mistake we see a lot of people make is that they think they can’t forgive their spouse (or anyone else for that matter) unless the person repents and asks first. If the couples in our focus group had held that belief, none of us would have reconciled.

After serving in ministry for almost twenty years we have discovered that many people—including pastors and leaders—confuse forgiveness with reconciliation. This can create a problem when helping couples reconcile because oftentimes one spouse is un-repentant. In his booklet titled Forgiveness, author and pastor Charles Stanley writes: “Forgiveness is the act of setting someone free from an obligation to you that is a result of a wrong done against you…We need not wait until a person asks for forgiveness to do so. If that were true many times we would wait forever.”

The problem with thinking that someone has to repent and ask before they can be forgiven is that so often—especially in marriage—a spouse may never ask. While one reason may be stubbornness, the biggest seems to be that many people view offenses differently. For instance, suppose you thought your spouse snapped and was rude to you in front of a friend or relative. Later, you confront your spouse. In a perfect world your spouse would lovingly take you in his/her arms and say, “Honey, thank you for pointing that out to me. Will you forgive me? I promise I will work hard to always speak kind to you, especially in public.”

However, in a not-so-perfect world you may hear something like this: “What are you talking about! I was not rude…you were!” Now, what are you going to do? You could pretend to forgive the offense in an effort to keep the peace at all cost. Or, you could get into a heated argument until your spouse finally cries “uncle”. But apologizing just so an argument will end is pointless because it’s not real.

Here are some choices when dealing with someone who is not repentant or has viewed an offense differently than you:

• You could stay angry until the person sees things your way
• You could harbor bitterness and try to get others to side with you, explaining that as long as the person refuses to repent, you do not have to forgive

• Or, after speaking the truth (in love) you could choose to forgive the person and give the offense over to God. “Father forgive them; for they know not what they are doing” (See Jesus’ response to insults and hatred in Luke 23:34). The key when someone is unrepentant or ignorant is not pretending to forgive, but, instead, giving their offense over to God and not harboring un-forgiveness.

Once someone forgives an offense, their heart will then be prepared for real reconciliation. Most people don’t wake up in the morning and make a list of all the ways they can offend others during the day. So, the quicker we can let an offense (real or imagined) go, the better chance we have of remaining friends and lovers during a disagreement. Stanley agrees: “The last thing we must do is to make reconciliation with those from whom we have been estranged…Once the barrier of un-forgiveness is removed, all the old pleasant feelings can surface, and there is actually joy in the process of restoration.”

Although making up after a disagreement can actually be fun at times, if the reconciliation isn’t real it won’t last. We have met with couples who said they wanted their marriage to work out, only to see it end in divorce later because one spouse was holding onto un-forgiveness during the reconciliation process. We have also known couples who go from one crisis to another because they enjoy the “high” of making up but continue to keep score of past offenses. Real reconciliation takes work.

With the great emphasis that Jesus and His disciples had on love and unity among Christians, why is there so much division in the church? Could it be that we are forgetting the most important element? Jesus gave us the example of perfect reconciliation: He forgave first—before we even asked.

By Joe and Michelle Williams

Founders and directors of the International Center for Reconciling God’s Way, Inc.

www.reconcilinggodsway.org

reconcile@pc-intouch.com                    

AMFM Focus Group Team Members

Clint and Penny Bragg

Directors of Inverse Ministries, Inc.

www.inverseministries.org

inverseministries@comcast.net

Gary & Mona Shriver

Hope & Healing

www.hopeandhealing.us

info@hopeandhealing.us