Five The Reconciling Community

“So you feel trapped. Is that why you attempted suicide?” I asked.

“Yes. I thought it was the only way out. Later last night I remembered some things you said in class about God and about hope. That is why I wanted to talk with you,” said Stan.

We proceeded to talk for about an hour. I sensed that Stan needed to speak with a professional counselor, and fortunately we offer that service free on our campus. I set up an appointment for him, and he went twice a week for the next month. I saw him on campus, and he waved to me. He did not look well, but he was managing. The next time I saw him was in chapel, on a day when I was preaching about God’s acceptance and forgiveness. Stan followed me to my office and asked to talk. We sat down with coffee.

“Is that true?” he asked.

“Is what true?”

“What you said in chapel—about God’s unconditional love and forgiveness?”

“I believe every word I said, Stan.”

“So how do you do it?” he asked.

“Do you mean, how do you experience that?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I went to church some growing up, but I never heard that message. All I remember hearing was that we are supposed to try harder so that we won’t go to hell.”

“God doesn’t want you to try any harder, Stan, he just wants to love you, and for you to love him back. When you love God with your whole heart, the rest takes care of itself.”

“I really want to know that love,” he said, as if his soul were starving.

“Let’s pray,” I said.

I prayed that God would reveal himself to Stan, to come into his heart. Stan whispered, “Yes, God, please come into my heart.” The prayer lasted only five minutes, but when we sat up and our eyes met I noticed that his countenance had changed. He was beaming with joy.

“What do I do now?” he asked.

“Do you have a Bible?”

“No.”

“Do you have a group of Christian friends to meet with?”

“No.”

“Then I will take care of both. Keep Thursday night free.”

He said he would. I called two students who were active in their faith and asked them to get to know Stan. I told them that I was going to get him a Bible. They asked if they could do it. I said sure. They pooled their money and bought Stan his first Bible. That Thursday night he showed up early and sat in front with his new Bible and a notepad. He wrote down everything I said, and was flipping through his Bible, trying to read every passage I referenced. I had been teaching on how we are new creations in Christ. The metaphor I used was the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Stan was smiling; he liked that image. Afterward, his two new friends took him out for coffee and talked with him late into the night.

He told them his story, and the other students did not judge him but told him that they loved him. He had found friends. He never missed our Thursday-night fellowship group. About a month after asking God into his heart, Stan stopped by my office. He said, “If it would be all right with you, I would like to share my testimony at the campus fellowship.” He had only been with us a month and he already knew our lingo: “share my testimony”! I told him he could. The next week I introduced him and said, “Stan wants to share his own story about discovering God’s love.” He got up and stammered for a moment, but then launched into his own story. He held nothing back. He was completely transparent, telling them about his abuse, his self-hatred and his suicide attempt.

Then his countenance changed, just as it did in my office, when he began talking about how God reached out and came into his heart, about the warm feeling of acceptance and forgiveness he felt, and how his life was changed. “I have one last thing to say,” he said and then paused. “I was once a caterpillar. But Christ Jesus lives in me. And I am now a butterfly!” There was not a dry eye in the room. Stan sat down, and I walked to the center of the room. I did not feel like teaching after that. It turned out I would not need to. A young woman raised her hand and then stood up and said, “I was also abused when I was young. It went on for a year. I have carried that burden for a long time, but Stan’s courage has inspired me. Tonight I want to let the pain out.” We prayed for her, asking God to loosen and release the pain.

In our soul-training exercises, we encounter the idea that “hurt people hurt people.” Stan extends forgiveness in the way that we receive forgiveness. Is there someone that you could extend forgiveness to?

Stan had one more thing to teach me. He came to my office a few months later and said, “I have a question. Since God forgave me of all of my sins, then I figure that he would also forgive the man who molested me. I want to tell him about Jesus, and that I forgive him for what he did to me. Do you think that is a good idea?” he asked.

I was stunned. Here he was, ready to forgive the person who had nearly caused the end of his life, a man who for five years had torn his soul apart. Everything in me wanted to say, “No, you must not forgive him!” I realized that my own heart was far from forgiving this man, whom I had never even met. I paused and prayed, then said, “If you feel led to forgive him, then I would not forbid it. But please be careful. He will likely not listen to you. To forgive someone implies their guilt, and he may be in denial.”

“I am prepared. I want him to know what I know. Maybe he could turn his life around if he knew about God’s love and forgiveness,” Stan said. I was right, however, about the man being in denial. He acted as if nothing had happened, and he said he didn’t want to hear about God. But Stan did one thing that surprised me. He said to the man as they were parting, “I forgive you. But I want you to know one thing: you will never take advantage of me again. I am not afraid anymore. I am a butterfly.”

False Narrative: Only When We Forgive
Will We Be Forgiven and Healed

I have had the privilege of being a guest on many Christian radio talk shows. Typically, the host of the show interviews me about the content or ideas from one of my books. Many of the shows allow listeners to call in and ask questions. Initially, I expected callers to join in the discussion, perhaps agreeing or disagreeing with me or raising a question about the topic. However, I quickly learned that seldom happens. Instead, listeners often share their stories that end with the same plea: “I have been hurt by someone—please help me forgive them.”

Often it concerns some form of betrayal, usually between spouses: a husband left his wife for another woman or vice versa. Sometimes people want to find the courage to forgive themselves for having made so many mistakes. One woman, barely holding back her tears, told of the years of bad decisions and drug abuse, and said she was at a place where she refused to forgive herself for destroying her own life: “I have made so many mistakes I cannot forgive myself.” One time a man said, with trembling voice, “My wife up and left me and our kids. I do not know where she is, but I still love her, and would take her back if she asked. Is that right? If she walked through our door right now, I would forgive her, I think. Do you think I should?”

No matter what the topic of the program was supposed to be, I could count on at least two of the calls being about forgiveness: Can I forgive? Should I forgive? How do I forgive? These real-life stories and questions always made me pause and reflect on two powerful points: First, people want to be free of the pain that has been inflicted by another person (which they assume forgiveness will cure). Second, it is very hard to forgive people who have hurt us.

One day, while in my car, I was listening to a therapist who has a radio call-in show. Sure enough, he got a call from a desperate person who asked, “How can I forgive a person who has hurt me?” I eagerly turned up the volume to hear his answer.

“Well, let me make this clear. Forgiveness is something you do for you. You need to forgive this person in order to be healed. Your pain will not go away until you forgive that person,” the therapist said with authority.

What do you think of the idea that the false narrative ultimately centers around the idea that we must choose to forgive?

Then it hit me—you cannot forgive by power of the will. This therapist was wrong. The false narrative that hurts so many people goes like this: Only when we forgive will we be forgiven and healed. This false narrative tells us that forgiveness is something we must do because God commanded it, or because we are tired of the pain unforgiveness is causing us. The false narrative that we must do the work of forgiving is yet another version of the control narratives we so easily adopt because they seem to make sense to us, and because they allow us the illusion that we can control everything. If forgiveness is something I do out of my own strength, then I get the credit if I succeed or the blame if I fail. So we grit our teeth and try to feel forgiveness toward someone who has harmed us. And we fail.

We fail because we do not have the resources to forgive. On our own, in our weak flesh, we do not have the strength or capacity to forgive the trespasses of those who trespass against us, no matter how hard we try. The only way we can forgive is by letting God renarrate our lives in the context of the metanarrative of Jesus, who forgave his enemies and even died for them. This will lead to healing—the healing of ourselves—which is necessary if we are going to forgive someone who has hurt us.

True Narrative: Knowing We Have Been Forgiven Leads to Healing and Forgiveness

Stan taught me what the New Testament teaches but somehow I had failed to understand. Stan’s life, his story, became a part of the metanarrative of Jesus, and he was able to renarrate his story in light of the story of the cross—the solid fact that God in Christ has reconciled the world to himself. With all due respect to those who counsel from a secular perspective (and do a great deal of good for people), in Stan’s case the counselor he saw was merely able to help him become stabilized, not to be healed, and certainly not to transform his pain into joy. For that he needed to graft his life into a story that helped him see what had happened to him in a new light.

As is common in people who have been abused, Stan blamed himself. He could not forgive himself, he told me, because what he had done was so evil, even if he was not complicit. It was only when Stan saw his life, his story, as a part of God’s story that he was able to confront his memories and his abuser with the ability to forgive. Jesus had borne his sins—all of them—on the cross and announced, “It is finished.” Christ had forgiven him, and now he was empowered to forgive. It would not take a lot of willpower on his part to forgive; it was a natural extension of grace. The true narrative is this: Only when we know we have been forgiven will we find healing and become able to forgive.

Stan asked me, the morning of his conversion, if what I was preaching was true. What I was preaching, to be more specific, was based on this passage from 2 Corinthians: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).

This is a clear explanation of the finality of the cross. God—in Christ—is not counting our sins against us. God stopped counting and apparently never took it back up. God is no longer dealing with us on the basis of our sins but of our faith. Jesus died for all of the sins of all of the people for all time—and that means you. Do you know that? Do you have that peace that passes all understanding? Do you have the joy of knowing that God has nothing against you? When Stan walked into the chapel that day, he would have answered these questions with a no. When he left my office, thanks to the powerful work of the Holy Spirit, he could say yes.

For years, the transformation I saw in Stan had always been a sacred miracle to me, something I was privileged to witness but did not understand. Only years later, when I understood the transforming power of narrative, spiritual exercise and community, did I find ways of understanding what happened to him. Stan renarrated his story in the larger context of God’s story, and he did it in the context of community. He then began unlearning destructive patterns and instead began practicing forgiveness and reconciliation. But note: he did not have to try. Healing was happening to him. When he knew that Jesus had forgiven him, he began to forgive himself. Knowing he had been forgiven began a process of healing.

Stan did not forgive in order to feel better, though his pain had driven him to the end of his rope. He was already feeling better before he forgave the man. He was feeling better because his heart had been warmed by the good news that sins, even his, had been forgiven. It was not for his own therapy that Stan addressed his abuser, but a natural extension of the grace he had found—or that had found him. We can only forgive when we know we have been forgiven, when we are certain that we live in the strong and safe kingdom of God.

Jesus’ Narrative

What is the narrative of Jesus concerning forgiveness and reconciliation?

Jesus told his apprentices a story to illustrate this concept of forgiving others because we have been forgiven. He did so, however, in reverse: the story he told is about a person who has been forgiven much but fails to forgive even a little. In this story Jesus used money, or debt, as a metaphor for forgiveness in general:

For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. (Matthew 18:23-27)

In this parable a king is settling his accounts, and comes across a man who owes him an outrageous amount of money: ten thousand talents. The debtor cannot pay this huge debt and begs the king for mercy. Amazingly, the king cancels the man’s debt, and he walks away free. He and his whole family could have spent the rest of their lives as slaves in a distant land or in debtors’ prison. Thanks to the mercy of the king, he lives in freedom.

You would think that anyone who had been forgiven a debt so great would be the most gracious, merciful and generous person on the planet. Yet this was not the case.

But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, “Pay what you owe.” Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. (Matthew 18:28-30)

The man who had been forgiven so much bumps into a man who owes him, in comparison, very little, a hundred denarii (about a couple months’ salary). The shock of the story is the difference in the amount of the debt. Ten thousand talents is approximately six hundred thousand times more than one hundred denarii. Even though he had been released from an enormous amount of money, the man who should be forgiving has his debtor thrown into prison!

When the king hears of this, he brings the unforgiving man back into his presence to confront him about this inequity, saying: “ ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt” (Matthew 18:32-34). The king has the unforgiving man thrown in prison to work off his debt, which he will never be able to repay.

What is the point of the parable? Keep in mind the question this story was designed to answer: how much and how often should we forgive one another? The king is like God, and we are like the man who owes the king a debt we cannot pay. We can never hope to earn God’s forgiveness. Our sins are too great and we simply have nothing we could offer God to repay them. However, the king forgives the unrepayable debt out of mercy, just as God, in Christ, has forgiven our unrepayable debt. The man did nothing to merit his forgiven debt, and neither do we. The point is clear: we have been forgiven for so much more than we will ever be called on to forgive.

Let me be clear, lest you think I am encouraging the false narrative, insinuating that you simply must forgive out of your own strength or will. Jesus told this story in order to help us get our narratives right. If we meditate for a long time on how much we have been forgiven, it will help us forgive others. Stan understood this without reading this passage. He said, “Since God forgave me of all of my sins, then I figure that he would also forgive the man who molested me. I want to tell him about Jesus, and that I forgive him for what he did to me.”

Stan’s narrative shifted dramatically in a relatively short period of time as he renarrated his own story: God has forgiven me for all of my sins, therefore, I can forgive those who have sinned against me. But note: it was only when the larger narrative was well in place that he was able to do it. If, on the day he told me about his years of molestation, I had said, “Stan, you need to forgive that man, and forgive yourself while you are at it,” I would have done him much harm. He would have been thrown back on himself (the false narrative) and unable to forgive either that man or himself.

Forgiven Only When We Forgive?

Jesus’ story ended with the unforgiving man being thrown into prison and tortured for the rest of his life. Then Jesus said to his disciples: “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart” (Matthew 18:35).

It is easy to make a mistake here and assume that our forgiveness is conditioned on our ability to forgive, or that forgiveness is like a transaction: you forgive, then God will forgive you. Many people pray the Lord’s Prayer (“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”) and conclude that our forgiveness is merited by our ability to forgive.

This is yet another false narrative, and it is so deeply embedded in people that we need to take a moment to address it. Jesus is simply trying to show us the absurdity of accepting God’s forgiveness for our countless sins and yet refusing to forgive the one or two (or even a hundred) sins done against us. It is absurd for us to glory in the forgiveness God has given us and yet remain unwilling to forgive someone who has harmed us.

A community who has been forgiven must become a community who forgives. God’s forgiveness toward us is unrestricted; how can our forgiveness for one another be restricted? That is his point. Turning the story into a transaction reveals the tendency we have toward legalism. My inability to forgive another is usually based on my own sense of justice. We think, It is unfair, unjust, to forgive the person who hurt me. Why? They have not earned our forgiveness. True. So then, is that how we want to be treated? Jesus is saying to us, “All right, if it is your just deserts you are after, then you can have them. If it is justice you seek, it is justice you shall get.” New Testament scholar Joachim Jeremias states it this way: “Woe unto you if you try to stand on your rights; God will then stand on his and see that his sentence is executed rigorously.”

So which way do we want to be treated? By mercy or by justice? Dare we have the audacity to look to God and ask for our rights when it comes to those who have sinned against us, but ask for mercy when it comes to our own trespasses? We cannot play it both ways.

Jesus’ words in the Lord’s Prayer are reminders that we need to hear repeatedly: You have been forgiven much; therefore you must forgive. It is not easy, but it is also not impossible. Once we stand firmly entrenched in the larger story of our own forgiveness, we can then forgive—a process that often takes time. Not surprisingly, this is exactly what Paul taught in his epistles.

Paul’s View

In two places Paul exhorts the ecclesia to bear with each other and forgive each other, and in both places he does so on the basis that we have been forgiven by God:

Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Colossians 3:13)

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32)

From these two passages I see both the pattern and the power of forgiveness. Paul is not suggesting we forgive. He is commanding us to “bear with one another” and to “be kind to one another.” How is that done? By forgiving. As Christ forgave us, so we also forgive. It is not something we do—it is something we participate in. That is the pattern of forgiveness. L. Gregory Jones is helpful here: “The pattern of our forgiven-ness, and hence our discipleship as forgiven and forgiving people, is none other than the pattern we find in Christ.”

It is unthinkable, then, for us to willfully not forgive those who have harmed us, because we have been forgiven. N. T. Wright explains: “Paul here makes two points. . . . First, it is utterly inappropriate for one who knows the joy and release of being forgiven to refuse to share that blessing with another. Second, it is highly presumptuous to refuse to forgive one whom Christ himself has already forgiven.”

But before we turn this into an enterprise of the flesh, we must realize that we do not do this on our own. Our ability to forgive is not only patterned after Christ but empowered by Christ. As Miroslav Volf says so well, “Christ forgives through us, and that is why we can forgive.” Jesus then is both the pattern and the power of forgiveness and reconciliation.

We All Need Forgiveness

When I was just out of seminary and serving my first years in the local church, I had the privilege of meeting on a regular basis my former professor and mentor Richard J. Foster. By this time Richard was a highly respected and famous speaker and writer on the Christian life. Richard suggested that we get together once a week to share with one another about our lives and pray. I always showed up with great enthusiasm. Each week he taught me something new.

One of the things he taught me has especially stuck with me through the years. For a few weeks I was struggling in my life with God because of my proneness to wander from the God I love. I really wanted to unburden myself, to break the power of this pattern, and I knew in my heart that I needed to confess it to someone and bring it to the light. I also wanted Richard to think well of me, so I ruled him out as the person I would confess to. Then, during our next meeting, he said, “Jim, is there anything you would like to confess?” I was shocked and wondered how he could have possibly known. I stammered, “Well, yes, there is. I want to confess—” but he cut me off. He then said, “I will be happy to hear your confession and announce God’s forgiveness over you, but first you must hear my confession.” I was stunned. The great and spiritual Richard Foster could sin? And even more shocking was that he would confess it to me. I was not worthy. For a few moments I was disoriented.Then, rather sheepishly, I said, “Okay.”

Richard then proceeded to confess his own sins of that past week. Years later I am certain that he confessed not so much because he needed to but in order to teach me several things. First, all of us are sinners. I think he knew I put him on a pedestal, and he wanted me to know that we are all human. Second, he wanted to take away my fear. He could see I was hesitant to confess, so he, in a Christlike way, showed me the way. Third, he wanted to draw us closer. By disclosing our hearts in this way, we moved to a new level of trust. I believe that morning time of confession allowed us to trust one another in a new way.

Keeping Boundaries of Forgiveness

This discussion would not be complete if I did not mention two caveats about forgiveness and reconciliation. The first deals with keeping appropriate boundaries. In the real world there is a great deal of pain, violence and tragedy, and people cannot be counted on to respond to our kindness with graciousness and integrity. Though we are called to love by forgiving, we need to be careful when and how we do this. Though we are called to be reconciled, we are not called to be abused or to be repeatedly harmed by someone. Though we are called to bear one another’s burdens, we must remove ourselves from persons or situations that take advantage of us or can hurt us. To forgive is not to be abused.

There was a young man in a youth group I once led whose birth mother had abandoned him when he was three. He had been raised by his grandparents while his mother continued to spend her time abusing drugs and subsequently losing jobs. Once a year, as if on cue, she would reappear in this young man’s life and try to reestablish their relationship. For a few weeks she would be around and would tell him she was sorry for the things she had done to him (such as locking him in a basement for two days) and not done for him (be a parent). He would find himself torn: he wanted to forgive her, but he also knew she would let him down.

I explained to him, “What you really want is to be loved by her, but she is not capable of that right now, and perhaps not for a long time, perhaps never. You can forgive her for what she has done to you, but you are old enough now to stop it from continuing. You need to set boundaries with her, as strange as that sounds. You can tell her you love her, and that you forgive her, but you must also tell her you will not let her keep hurting you.” This made a great deal of sense to him, and he was able to set up appropriate boundaries with her. Many years have passed since those days. The last time I spoke with him, he told me that she had never changed her ways, but he also had never let her take advantage of him again. Now grown, married and a father himself, he told me he learned how to forgive without being abused.

The Forgiveness Ambush

A second caveat or warning about forgiveness and reconciliation involves times when our need to feel forgiven disregards the possible hurt it may cause the person we are forgiving or asking for forgiveness. A colleague of mine was once involved in a chaplaincy program in which he worked closely with a group of a dozen or so pastors. In one of their meetings, a fellow pastor told the group she had something important to confess. She got up, walked over to my colleague, knelt down in front of him, and said she needed to ask for forgiveness for harboring anger and other ill feelings toward him—which she then listed in front of the group. My colleague said that he was extremely embarrassed and felt ashamed throughout the whole event. He had never known of her strong negative feelings, and now he would forever. And so would the rest of the group.

This kind of request for forgiveness does not build community—this is narcissism. And sometimes it is malicious, a way to attack someone under the guise of reconciliation. The pastor should have made her confession privately. And even then there is a danger that it is still more about her need to unload some emotional baggage than it is about strengthening a relationship. My friend Andrew calls this “the forgiveness ambush.” A person calls you up for coffee and midway through your latte announces that he or she has something they feel led to discuss. Once again, it is all about that person’s hurt or pain that you, unknowingly, have caused. “But I want you to know that I have forgiven you,” the person often says. This is not genuine reconciliation. This is just showy forgiveness, making light of the true act of reconciliation.

If we truly have forgiven someone, we will not need to alert him or her to it. If it is a case of wanting to make the person aware of something that you feel he or she needs to change, that is entirely different. That is not reconciliation but admonishment (see chapter six). If one person truly has forgiven another, he or she would be better off showing it by taking the other person out for coffee and deepening the friendship through healthy conversation and perhaps a time of prayer together. If you have come to that blessed place where you have forgiven someone, keep it between you and God. Love, it is said, covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).

A Power Made Perfect in Weakness

For the first few years after he graduated, I had little contact with Stan. But eventually he did his best to reconnect with me and would call me once a year or so. After college he joined the Navy, becoming a part of the elite Navy Seals. He told me a few years later that he had gotten married, and the next year he told me about the birth of their first child.

He also told me that God has used him in a ministry to help young people who had been sexually abused. He shared his testimony on a regular basis with young people who were trying to put their lives together. I asked him what he tells them, and he said, “Oh, I just tell them my story. I tell them how I became a butterfly and that they can do the same.” As I have grown more in my understanding, I see more clearly how Jesus stepped in and transformed a human life in only a few months. Jesus wrote Stan into his story, and Stan was never the same.

God has given us all a message of reconciliation—that God, in Christ, has reconciled the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). The first place we are invited to practice this reconciliation is with one another. Forgiveness is a gift we receive and a gift we give. When we do, our communities become like our God—good and beautiful.

Soul Training

Experiencing Reconciliation

Reconciliation and forgiveness can be made real in our lives through practices that embed the story of Jesus into our lives. There are three soul-training exercises I recommend you try this week. Choose at least one, the one that best fits where you are right now, but try all three, if possible.

Three Exercises

1. Allowing others to forgive for you. If you have been harmed greatly by someone, it may be impossible for you to forgive that person. You may not even be in a place where you want to forgive them, even though you feel you should. This is where community can be of great help. Those who stand with you in fellowship under the cross can begin to offer prayers of forgiveness for that person.

Here is how it works:

• Identify the person you would like to forgive but are not quite ready to forgive.

• Choose a close friend who is a Christ-follower and ask the person whether he or she would consider taking on that burden for you—the burden of your unforgiveness. Ask your friend to take that experience for you, to bear this burden for you (Colossians 3:13).

• If that person agrees, then he or she will commit to setting aside ten minutes each day to pray for the person and also for you, asking God to deepen your awareness of your own forgiveness.

Allowing our brothers and sisters in Christ to forgive where we cannot forgive may be a way for us to begin learning how to forgive. Knowing someone else is taking on the burden is freeing in itself. One member of our apprentice group allowed another person in our group to take on this burden for him. He said, “Just knowing that Laura is praying for this person and for me takes the pressure off of me. I feel as if the grip of unforgiveness is starting to loosen.”

Another member of the group chose to do this with her spiritual director. She set up a time on a Saturday morning to talk about this situation, and her director agreed to do this exercise with her. She said that just by making the arrangements she was on the road to healing.

2. Steps to forgiving someone who has hurt you. It may be that you feel ready to try to forgive someone yourself. If so, there are some steps that may help in the process.

• Identity. I have been saying that the key to forgiveness is an awareness of your own forgiveness. This will entail deep reflection on Bible passages that announce your forgiveness. Either memorize or meditate on the following passage. It is a great proclamation of our new identity, our reconciliation and the motive to announce reconciliation to others:

  If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)

• Perspective. I have found it helpful to pray for the person I am trying to forgive. This usually helps me get a new awareness of the person and his or her situation. Many times, through the leading of the Spirit, I am given a new understanding of that person and his or her life situation. One of the best phrases you can reflect on is this: Hurt people hurt.

This is a universal truth. People who hurt others are people who are themselves hurting because they have been hurt. I remember being angry and upset about a person who had said bad things about me in a meeting where I was not present. I spent the next two months thinking about ways to hurt the person back—in a Christian way, of course! I rehearsed conversations wherein I would reduce the person to tears through the power of my tongue.

Then I decided that, as an apprentice, there might be a better way! I began praying for this person and asking God to give me insight into his life. Not long after, I was visiting with someone who knows this person who explained—without my prompting—the extraordinary struggle and pain in his life. Realizing that this person probably hurt me in response to his own pain helped minimize the need I felt to hurt in return.

3. If your church offers the Lord’s Supper, see something new in it. Many churches have Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, on a regular basis. If your church offers this, I would encourage you to approach this means of grace with new eyes. The center of the Lord’s Supper is the reminder that Christ has reconciled the world to himself.
L. Gregory Jones puts it this way: “Christ’s sacrifice relocates our lives as forgiven betrayers, as reconciled sinners, in communities of broken yet restored communion.”

Reflect on these wonderful truths as you partake: Jesus is relocating your life, renarrating your life, and this meal is a tangible experience of that.

In an earlier exercise in this book I asked you to spend time with God using “two-by-four,” that is, two hours with God and four acts of kindness. This exercise fits perfectly with that concept. Perhaps you could show up at church well ahead of time—thirty minutes or so, just to be quiet and to reflect on the act of worship. You may want to read 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 several times as you sit silently in the sanctuary or chapel.