I’m forty-three. Y’all, that’s older than I’ve ever been. And yet sometimes, I still feel like a 12-year-old learning some basic relational concepts/skills/commands. One of those being forgiveness.

Misconceptions of Forgiveness

For years I misunderstood forgiveness. I feared forgiving because somewhere, deep-down, I thought that forgiveness of an offense would mean that the offense didn’t even matter. Which meant that my pain didn’t matter. And that seemed wrong considering how much God cares about the details of our lives.

I thought that forgiveness insisted that everything go “back to normal” in a relationship. And that if I wasn’t able to be “normal and ok” in my inner being, that I was being un-Christlike. But that seemed wrong considering that God desires truth and complete healing to our inner parts and is so tender to the pain of His children.

In recent months, I’ve been walking a road of forgiveness, and the Lord has so graciously given me insight that has brought real freedom and true healing. Not to be too systematic or anything, because relationships are anything but systematic. They’re messy and complicated and multi-layered. But these four steps have really helped me gain perspective. They’ve helped me move toward that land called “letting go” that I always heard about yet questioned its real existence.

So I thought I’d pass them along to you.

Four Vital Steps to True Forgiveness

1. Voice our feelings to the Lord.

Feelings are a gift from the Lord. They’re part of being human. But they’re meant to be a thermometer rather than a compass. They tell us what’s going on inside of us. They give us insight into our soul and the struggles of our heart. They tell us when we’re not safe or when we’re hurt, when we’re happy or when we’re surprised. And a million other things. However, if we follow everywhere they lead — as if they were a compass — we’ll straight-up land in prison. Like, for real.

Since feelings are part of our design, it’s vitally important to recognize and work through them. Otherwise we will live in constant denial which only compounds the problem and eventually leaves us numb and disconnected. So the first step in forgiveness is naming our feelings to the Lord. We have to start by simply talking to Him about what’s going on inside of us. It sounds duh. But it’s necessary. Talk to Him. He already knows why we feel what we feel. He understands every single fold of our hearts. So we begin with Him.

2. Seek His perspective on the situation.

This means asking God to show us His perspective. Sometimes He gives deep insight to help us understand why an offense happened. He may give us insight into the other person. Hurt people hurt people. Or He may give us insight into our own actions or motivations that fueled the offense. He sees it all.

He knows why we do what we do. He knows why that other person did what they did. And He alone can grace us with perspective that goes beyond our human eyes. So we ask Him. It may take time in His Word. It may take time away from the situation. It may take time in prayer with a trusted friend. But He promises wisdom to those who seek.

He may not fully explain all the reasons behind an offense. We may not completely understand. But getting a glimpse into His perspective – having a bit of understanding to the why behind the mess – helps us to move forward.

3. Set loving, appropriate boundaries.

This is the big one. This step is the step I had been missing for so long. I had grown fairly successful in voicing my feelings to the Lord and then seeking His perspective – in turn washing my feelings with truth. But I always thought that the next step was to “let it go.” That a “good” Christian would move on and “be fine already.” But for us to truly let things go to the Lord, we need to set some loving boundaries.

I cannot recommend the book Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend enough. I read it years ago (and failed to implement what it teaches) but then recently reread it and lightbulbs went off. They address every angle on the issue of boundaries – from misconceptions, to definition, to an action plan, to real life examples, and more.

There’s no way I could do the topic justice here, so I’ll just say this. Without setting loving boundaries, we open ourselves up to a pattern of sinful, unhealthy behavior. We enable brothers and sisters in Christ to continue on in destructive patterns. And we don’t reflect the Lord when we can’t set loving boundaries.

I love what Jen Wilkin says in her newest book In His Image. (Sorry for the length. Her words were just so good.):

“Forgiving lavishly does not mean that we continue to place ourselves in harm’s way. The Bible takes great pains to address the dangers of keeping company with those who perpetually harm others. Those who learn nothing from their past mistakes are termed fools. While we may forgive the fool for hurting us, we do not give the fool unlimited opportunity to hurt us again. To do so would be to act foolishly ourselves. When Jesus extends mercy in the Gospels, he always does so with an implicit or explicit, “Go and sin no more.” When our offender persists in sinning against us, we are wise to put boundaries in place. Doing so is itself an act of mercy toward the offender. By limiting his opportunity to sin against us, we spare him further guilt before God. Mercy never requires submission to abuse, whether spiritual, verbal, emotional, or physical.” (Jen Wilkin, In His Image, p. 80-81)

Maybe fear prevents us from setting boundaries. Maybe it’s shame. Maybe it’s habit. Regardless, God wants to teach us how to honor Him by setting loving boundaries with other people. Loving boundaries. Not bitter, angry boundaries. Boundaries firm but in love, desiring wholeness for ourselves as God’s child and wholeness for the other person.

We’ll stumble along and do it wrong at times, allowing emotion to guide rather than His Spirit. But He’s the best Teacher. And He’s patient with our process of becoming more and more like Christ.

4. Release the offense to the Lord.

Only after we’ve set loving boundaries can we move into this fourth step of release. Only after we’ve draw some clear lines for moving forward, are we able to “let things go” to the Lord’s faithfulness.

Releasing to the Lord means we’re releasing judgement to Him. We’re freeing others from our vengeance. And we’re freeing ourselves from the bitterness that will most definitely take root if we don’t deal with the hurt that comes from living on this planet with other imperfect humans.

“Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” Luke 17:3-4

Embrace the Mess

I think what happens is that we read verses commanding things like forgiveness and we forget that life is a process. We read stories of people in the bible who had difficult, complicated relationships — remember Leah and Rachel?! — forgetting that time happened between verses. Process happened.

Sometimes it seems like we as followers of Jesus are afraid of things being messy. We want to rush to the “promised land” where there’s milk and honey. But transformation most often happens in the wilderness. The messy, difficult, weary wilderness. Yes, forgive. Forgiveness is freedom. Forgiveness is commanded. But the process of forgiveness can take some time. And life can stay a little messy while we’re walking through the process.

Regardless of where you are (or I am) in the process of forgiveness, God wants to meet us right there. He doesn’t push. He never rushes. He’s not in a hurry. He wants to fully heal. And full healing takes honesty, time, prayer, community, and maybe a walk through the wilderness.

Welcome to earth, populated with humans. It’s messy here.