How to Forgive When You’re Struggling with Forgiveness

As you grow up, one of the most challenging but helpful things you can hear is that you can do hard things. One needs to hear this because life can be incredibly hard – relationships break down, we don’t always get our dream job or dream mate, and the path toward happiness and joy is strewn with many difficulties that include our own weaknesses that we need to overcome.

Knowing that you can do hard things encourages you to push through self-doubt and the desire to quit that inevitably plague you when the going gets tough and things aren’t falling into place as you’d hoped.

A visceral reaction to forgiveness.

Jesus spoke often about forgiveness, whether our forgiveness before God or the forgiveness that ought to exist among those who’ve been forgiven by a gracious God. The story of the lost son who abandoned and scorned his father, frivolously spending his inheritance until he was destitute and desperate enough to want to eat pig feed, shows us how low we may sink in our desire to flee from God and the dire straits we can find ourselves in as a result.

In that story (to be found in Luke 15), Jesus also talks about the father who runs to embrace his son when the boy finally resigned himself to return home. The abundant forgiveness issuing from that father was earth-shattering, but it was an excellent picture of the forgiveness that God extends to us, whether we are the wayward son who left home or the buttoned-up sibling who stayed home but was nevertheless far from the father’s heart.

Not only does Jesus speak about the incredible forgiveness of God toward sinners, but He also speaks often about how those same forgiven sinners can now be conduits of forgiveness toward others.

We read this exchange in the Bible: ^“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times’” (Matthew 18:21-22, NIV).

This forgiveness must be as bountiful as God’s forgiveness toward us, as well as from the heart (Matthew 18:35). Forgiven people who truly understand the forgiveness God has lavished upon them will in turn forgive others, and Jesus returns to this theme a few times.

Of course, one might say, “Why should I forgive him? What he did was wrong, and he deserves to pay for it!” The inclination or suggestion of forgiving a wrongdoer often gets wrecked on the shoals of painful reality – what was done was wrong, and forgiveness seems to pass over that reality.

Forgiveness seems like a kind of emotional wallpaper that’s used to cover an ugly spot. It may even feel dishonest or unrealistic to forgive someone. Forgiveness is hard; it is probably one of the hardest things a person has to do in their life, and yet it is one of the most essential things to live a full life, and that’s why Jesus desires that forgiveness marks our lives.

The true nature of forgiveness.

One of several reasons why people struggle with forgiveness is that they don’t understand what it is and what it implies, as well as what it can do for them. To be fair, even if one is disabused of unhelpful or mistaken understandings of forgiveness, forgiveness is still a hard thing to do. However, understanding what one is dealing with is a helpful first step.

There is a gulf between forgiving someone and condoning their behavior. We often get tripped up on this one. If you were condoning their behavior, there would be no need to forgive them. The whole thing with forgiveness is that there’s an understanding that a wrong has been committed, and that’s why there’s an issue.

Where no wrong has been committed, or pain inflicted, there is nothing that requires remedy. Forgiveness assumes that the other person has done something bad that has in some way jeopardized the relationship.

Connected to this is the idea that in forgiving someone, we are condoning admittedly bad behavior by letting them off the hook. There’s a saying in economics that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. If a friend takes you out to lunch and pays, the lunch may be free to you, but someone (your friend) paid for it.

With forgiveness, what’s actually happening is not an abandonment of consequences or the reality of a cost that must be paid. Even for believers, God’s forgiveness is not free; well, it’s free for them, but Jesus died on the cross for sinners so that God could freely pardon them. Jesus was “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29, ESV), and He did so by dying for and taking the consequences of our sin upon Himself.

When a wrong happens, there is always a toll. Forgiving someone does not erase that toll. When someone lies to you and breaks your trust, that lie undermines intimacy and trust in the relationship. Forgiving the lie doesn’t take away the effects of the lie, nor does it remove the natural consequences of the lie, such as the breakdown and loss of trust in the relationship.

Forgiving the other person means that you’re choosing to let go of resentment and the desire to pay them back for the harm they did to you. It’s letting go of all the negative feelings that accompany being hurt by others and choosing not to let that experience control your heart.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean justice gets set aside, nor does forgiveness mean that everything is back to what it’s supposed to be. What forgiveness does is clear the decks to allow for reconciliation and restoration of relationship to happen, but it’s not the same as those things. When you forgive another person, you’re making an active choice to remove bitter feelings toward the other person from your heart.

How to forgive others.

Forgiveness is hard because it goes against our inclination to pay back as good as we get, to settle the score on our terms. In our pain, we desire for the other person to also experience pain, and that desire can take root in our hearts.

Unfortunately, the resentment and negative feelings we harbor in our hearts toward the other person are a snare for us. It takes a lot of energy to stay mad at someone, and it has many negative outcomes for your mental and physical health, such as high blood pressure, anxiety, and depression, as well as on your relationships.

Our hearts aren’t hermetically sealed, and so unforgiveness in one relationship will often bleed into others as well through the baggage we bring into those other relationships. Forgiving others is hard, but it’s worth it. A few things you can acknowledge and do to begin forgiving the people who have wronged you include the following:

Take it one day, one step at a time.

Just because you’ve forgiven someone, that doesn’t mean that everything is all good right away. You aren’t going to feel warm fuzzies around the other person immediately. As mentioned before, forgiveness clears the deck for the hard work of reconciliation to happen, so don’t assume that forgiveness by itself will restore things to the way they were.

It’s quite likely you’ll still need to have hard conversations about what happened, how and why it affected you, and what needs to change for the relationship to flourish. Forgiveness doesn’t happen overnight, and it may require daily surrendering your negative feelings and desire for vengeance to God (Romans 12:17-21).

Forgiveness isn’t a matter of your emotions, but your will.

As much as having warm fuzzies is great, forgiveness is more an act of the will than of the emotions. When Jesus says our forgiveness of others must be from “your heart” (Matthew 18:35), we 21^st-century readers take that to mean our emotional center. However, for Jesus and his contemporaries, the heart was the center of a person, where their emotions, thoughts, and will collide.

The heart is where decisions are made, our deepest values are held, and whence they are expressed in daily living. Forgiving someone has an emotional component to it, but it is an act of the will. That is why earlier we noted that we must choose to forgive the other person. Forgiveness is making a daily choice to relinquish ill feelings toward another person. Make the decision to forgive and act on it, even if it means your feelings will lag behind.

Draw on being forgiven to forgive others.

Paul writes, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32, ESV). Reflect on how God has forgiven you in Christ; He has forgiven us much more than we ever have to forgive another human being (see Matthew 18:21-35).

The reality of God’s grace toward us, and the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit can lead us to go beyond our natural inclinations and capacities. Allow the Spirit to lead you, relying on His strength to overcome negative thoughts and feelings you may still hold toward the person. It’s not easy, but that way lies freedom.

Finding forgiveness through Christian counseling.

You have a unique story, and pain caused by other people is embedded within that story. Sometimes, you just need a space to talk with someone about your experiences, and to work through the emotions and scars. A Christian counselor can provide you with a confidential and non-judgmental space in which you can express your emotions and be heard.

Your counselor has the training to walk gently with you, treating you with respect and helping you to unpack your experiences. They will provide you with support and encouragement, and challenge you where necessary on your journey toward forgiveness and wholeness.

If you find that you’re struggling to forgive others and it has had a negative impact on your health and relationships, reach out to a Christian counselor and make an appointment to begin finding freedom from unforgiveness.