If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses- Matthew 6:14-15 NKJV

Let’s be real. 

Hard things are hard and God asks His kids to do a lot of legitimately hard things.

Jesus’ followers are called to love the unlovable, exercise self-control in the most unjust of circumstances and do good things to and for those who mistreat them (Luke 6:27 12:17-19, 1^st Peter 3:17, Matthew 5:44). 

However.

Without question the hardest of all the hard things God’s people are called to do is to forgive. The New Testament passages that mandate total forgiveness are insanely comprehensive and leave no legitimate wiggle-room for compromise on the subject (Matthew 18:21-35, Mark 11:25, Colossians 3:13, 1^st Peter 2:18-21). These requirements go so far as to teach that our being forgiven by God hinges on our willingness to forgive others.  Furthermore, Hebrews 12:15 tells us that if unforgiveness is allowed to harden into bitterness that bitterness will not just defile (taint, corrupt, ruin) the bitter person but the people they love as well. 

Sigh. 

Over the course of the last fifteen years or so I have been “blessed” with several “opportunities” to forgive people who legitimately did not deserve to be forgiven. These were not small slights like having my feelings hurt, being overlooked in a social situation or being ignored by someone I felt should care about me. Each experience was extremely personal and painful.  To my knowledge, none of the people were actually sorry for what they did. I won’t share the details but all you really need to know is that all the situations demanded more of me than I honestly thought I was capable of giving at the time. 

Through those situations I learned there are steps that must be followed for the process of forgiveness to work itself out. These things don’t need to be done in a particular order. However, if any parts of the process are skipped or glossed over the forgiveness will be incomplete and our feelings towards the person who hurt us will harden into bitterness. 

 Following are the steps to forgiving others:

Recognize that forgiveness is a process rather than an event- 

Forgiving really big offenses is rarely, if ever, a one and done. Forgiveness begins with the choice to forgive. However, that choice must be followed by a commitment to do the work necessary to truly move on from the hurt. The length of time it takes to work through the process depends on many things including the level of hurt involved and the maturity of the person who was hurt. 

Ask God to help you-

Any reasonably mature adult can forgive a social slight or a minor offense easily.  However, there are some hurts and offenses so grievous that even the most spiritually mature people cannot forgive them without God’s help.  

Allow yourself to feel the impact of the hurt-

Anytime I hear someone who has just experienced a hurt at the hands of an evil person say “I forgive them”. My heart breaks for that person because I know they aren’t Jesus and Jesus is the only person who ever lived who is truly capable of forgiving an act of evil without first sorting through their feelings about the situation (Luke 23:34). Forgiveness is hard because it means surrendering the right we all feel we have to hold people accountable for sinning against us. Feeling the impact of hurt is painful. Therefore, it is tempting to simply utter the words “I forgive” without counting the cost and really working through how we feel about the person who hurt us. If we skip this step we will likely find that the feelings of forgiveness do not last long.    All that being said, it is critical that we don’t get stuck in this step because if we do bitterness is inevitable. 

Find a person to help you process- 

God designed the human race in such a way that people need people (Genesis 2:18). Christians are commanded to comfort the hurting and to mourn with those who mourn (2^nd Corinthians 1:3-5, 1^st Thessalonians 2:11-12, Romans 12:15). No one needs comfort more or is mourning harder than someone who is processing a huge injustice.  If you are hurting find a Christian counselor, Pastor or mature Christian friend who can walk you through the process. If you happen to be in a good place right now commit yourself to being the person who helps someone when they need comfort. 

Pray daily for the person who hurt you- 

Pray God blesses the person who hurt you. This one sucks the most, but thankfully you don’t need to pray they will be blessed with a million dollars or their dream job. Instead, ask God to bring them to a place of healthy self-awareness so they will understand how their actions are affecting others.  Ask God to put people and situations in their lives to help them become better. Pray He will do whatever needs to be done in their lives for them to grow into the best version of themselves possible (Luke 6:28). Keep praying those prayers until you feel freed from any bitterness you feel towards the person who hurt you. 

Forgiveness is never easy.

That said, forgiveness is worth all the pain and trouble involved because the alternative is mental and spiritual bondage. Unforgiveness keeps us emotionally stuck, making it impossible to grow and change.  Authentic forgiveness frees us from the mental bondage of thinking about the person who hurt us all the time. This frees us up to focus on the things that will empower us to become the people God wants us to be and freedom is worth any trouble and pain it takes to get there (2nd Corinthians 3:18).