The Evolution of Unforgiveness

                                                                                                                                May 25, 2023

There was a word spoken today that captured my heart.  It was said, “You will become what you choose not to forgive.”  My cynical mind questioned the truth behind this statement and mentally I pushed back with a snap judgment of self-righteousness.  I thought this was trite and simply a cliché that finds itself as s sticker on the bumper of one's life.  But then it found its way into the broken places of my self-absorbed soul. 

 

“You will become what you choose not to forgive.”  I recognize that I counsel and teach people to forgive from the platforms and office spaces of my public profession.  I remind people that forgiveness is not a singular moment, but an ongoing choice.  Forgiveness is a choice that takes place every time that offense is brought to my attention.  Recognizing that I may choose forgiveness today, but falter and fail to extend that same forgiveness tomorrow.  Why?  Because God wired us with the capacity to remember, and our memories produce emotions in the depth of our being.  Memories bind up our wounds or create them.  Memories can ignite our joy or burden our souls.

 

What I began to understand in the quietness of my morning while sitting here at my desk is simply, we are what we know.  My thinking, my actions, and my worldview are heavily shaped by what I have experienced. What I have been immersed in and who I have been surrounded by quietly leave indelible marks on my steps.  It’s why there are moments when what I say or how I respond mirrors that of those that raised or mentored me.  They have left lasting impressions on my soul.  And what is down in the well comes up in the bucket.

 

See, unforgiveness is so poisonous because it becomes my drink of choice.  I nurse it like a solo cup full of emotional comfort in the chaos of indecision and self-deprivation.  I fill it up when I think it’s almost dry simply for the comfort of believing I fit in at a party of people I don’t even like. I think somehow unforgiveness will keep me in the cool crowd.  It will justify my words and attitudes about a person that I feel in some way superior to because of some arbitrary self-serving standard that props me up to be king of my domain. It gives me a false sense of control.

 

When my thoughts about something ruminate for long enough, they give birth to something.  That birth produces something beautiful, praiseworthy, and full of meaning or painful and ultimately full of sorrow.  If what I know and have taught is the practice of unforgiveness then that will be what I return to in my true self.  It might not come out in casual conversation, but it will gnaw at my soul in the quietness of my thoughts and sleepless nights.  As it gnaws at my spirit it shapes me.  It forms my heart.  And now that anger, resentment, bitterness, impurity, or judgmental spirit of another that wounded me so long ago, defines me.  I find myself in a heap scratching spiritual sores with the broken pottery of my self-righteousness, shame, and guilt.  

 

Today I have a choice.  I have the emotional capacity to extend forgiveness even when that forgiveness is undeserved.  I have the understanding that Christ forgave me in the depth of my sin when I was most undeserving.  Today I can pick up my cross and crucify my unforgiveness as I deny myself and follow Him. There is joy in Him.  There is joy in his leadership.  He leads me to forgive because I was forgiven.  I can even forgive myself.