How God's Love Changes Us: Part 2 - Overcoming Pride & Insecurity Sýnishorn

Forgiveness feels like such an easy theme to pick out of this story, yet there is nothing easy about it. Before we can forgive from the heart, we must honor our pain and rage against injustice. We must feel our fury at the unfairness, anger at the innocence lost, and fierceness that reminds us that we matter and are worth raging over. Forgiveness is not forgetting or neglecting what we feel but fully embracing and exploring it, courageously addressing whatever is there. Like us, forgiveness has a heartbeat; it’s not something we do in our head.

The reason that honoring our true feelings is so important is that when we own our hurt and rage we can begin to feel our underlying grief, and as we grieve we learn to surrender. I believe that surrender and forgiveness are nearly interchangeable terms, and both involve a process. When we can honor what we are feeling without shoving it down or numbing out, we can begin the journey toward surrendering the pain, shame, and contempt inside us and emerge where true forgiveness is possible. This journey of release is the one the elder brother must take to liberate the younger  brother— and himself— from the shackles of his contempt.

It is easy to think that the elder brother should have just forgiven the younger one and joined the party, and maybe he did— we don’t know the end of the story. But when I reflect on my own propensity to hold a grudge, I don’t know if I would have been able to celebrate the prodigal’s return. Would you be able to forgive so quickly? Maybe you are more in touch with God’s mercy than I.

Whatever you do with forgiveness, it’s important to look closely and reflect honestly on your relationship with it. God calls us to a radical form of forgiveness through the example of his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus’ forgiveness of us cost him his very life, and for us the call is no different. We must suffer and die in the way we forgive. 

What have you been taught about the concept of forgiveness? How can you move into an authentic forgiveness?