how unforgiveness steals {life-giver series :: step 3}

My daddy was a great man, now absent from this physical world but present with our alive God. And I pray I honor him with these words.

He grew up as a farmer’s son, in a time and place where boys didn’t cry and cows needed milking by young hands before the sun rose. And you didn’t complain about the food God provided for that day. You gave thanks and ate. You worked hard and didn’t show weakness.

Time passed. God called him to be a preacher. He married my mom. He studied Greek and wrote long, theological papers at seminary. He took a church. And then another. And then I was born. And my sweet, quiet, hardworking, brilliant daddy didn’t really know what to do with me.

 

(And now I see where I get my sense of style. Leather and plaid. Love.)

 

Behind the pulpit, he preached with amazing abandon, full of love and fire. In ministry he befriended the outcast and traveled to desolate places proclaiming our Jesus.

But with me, intimacy bewildered him. He loved me. I now know that I know that he loved me. He provided everything I could have ever physically needed, and more. He gave me gifts and I know he whispered intercessions on my behalf. But intimacy bewildered him. And as a result, he and I never made any heart connections during my growing up years. He was physically present but emotionally and spiritually absent from my life.

I later learned that it broke his heart. When he was nearing the final days of his life, he cradled me and all of my eighteen years in his lap on a blue recliner. Something we had never done — me sitting in my daddy’s lap for refuge. His body was frail and my soul was heavy. And with tears he whispered, “I’m so sorry.” I knew what he meant. He meant that he was sorry for the lack — the lack of love, touch, time, words, and affection. The lack of relationship. And we sat and cried and regretted together.

He died a couple months later. And I ran down a rebellious road with a wounded spirit for too long.

 

 

To be honest it wasn’t until recent years that I realized the depths of that pain. It wasn’t until now seasons, as I dug deep beneath some of my personal places of bitterness, that God revealed what was at my core. Deep down, I had made a vow. I had decided as a little girl that I would never let a man have my heart because I would never let a man hurt me again.

I didn’t realize that I’d made that vow with myself. I didn’t realize that a bitter root started early, digging it’s way deep into the soil of my soul. I didn’t realize that unforgiveness marked a part of me. But it did. And the results were long-term and traumatic.

God has tenderly drawn me into places of soul-healing since coming back to Him almost 15 years ago. From glory to glory He has mended and restored. But I can clearly look back and see the results of that bitterness on pre-marriage, promiscuous relationships with boys and men. And even after coming to Jesus, I’ve seen the results on my marriage relationship. Results that laid beneath the surface but colored…everything.

God doesn’t call us to protect ourselves. He doesn’t call us to guard ourselves from the hurts caused by others. He wants to be our safe place — our refuge. He promises to be our heart-protector and soul-healer when wounds come. We enter the freedom He gives in Christ when we crawl into His lap and let Him be God. We let Him be the Judge. Not us.

 

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.
Psalm 91:1-2

 

Unforgiveness cries out with a bitter voice, “I deserve better. You failed me. I’m hurt and you have to pay. And until that debt is completely gone, I will hold resentment, anger, and bitterness deep in the recesses of my soul. I will knowingly and unknowingly speak curse over you.” And the result will always and forever be bondage and cursing for us.

Unforgiveness whispers a lie that tastes sweet at first. It pets our ego and inflates our pride. Because we like thinking of ourselves as deserving. Or worthy. Or better-than. But in the end unforgiveness binds us in chains, suffocating the joy rightly intended for us as free children of God.

Unforgiveness forgets grace. It forgets the magnitude of grace that covers, redeems, and lifts us out of our own selfishness, calling us “righteous” in the sight of a perfectly holy God. And it demands retribution.

I was a little girl when my heart felt wounds of an emotionally absent daddy. I didn’t know that I was closing my heart in bitterness. In unforgiveness. But I’m not that little girl anymore. I’ve been given eyes to see my desperation for a Savior. I now know the great grace that covers me. And I’ve chosen to forgive my sweet earthly father for unknowingly wounding me. And the result is freedom.

 

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
Colossians 3:12-13

 

Forgiveness sets us free to love. It sets us free to give of ourselves without the need for others to do anything in return, because we’ve found fulness in our Lord. We see that everyone is the same — needy for a Healer and Redeemer. And when we see people through the lens of grace, unforgiveness has no place.

Today is step three in the life-giver series. Because if we’re going to pour life into our relationships we cannot harbor unforgiveness. We can’t. We must live ready to forgive. The debt has been paid with Jesus’ blood. That same grace that calls you and I “holy and blameless” beckons us to freedom. It beckons us to forgive.

So how do we forgive?

We pray. We press hard into our Lord — the Forgiver of all sin. We seek refuge in Him and trust His covering. We meditate on what He says about forgiveness. We live authentic, allowing others to walk with us down the tearful road of releasing the debt. And then we believe Him to do the heart-healing work that only He can do.

Feelings take time to line up with the willful forgiveness. But feelings eventually come. They will come. But until they do we command our soul towards freedom. Our God always and forever blesses the choice to forgive.

 
Fill me, Lord…

Think of someone who has wounded you. Consider before The Lord if bitterness has taken root. If it has, then take the time to tend to that root before it steals more from you.

How have you experienced the freedom of forgiveness? Either forgiveness towards you or forgiveness you’ve given away.