Reprograming the mind

[Tom Wetmore]

Forgiveness can easily be thought of as what we do for the forgiven. But forgiveness is more for the forgiver. What happens psychologically to us when we forgive?

[Gail]

There is a letting go... of the need for revenge. That is one thing.

It is also a taking charge of our reactions and not being ruled by them. Having feelings of anger and revenge are one thing, but if they occupy our thoughts and words so that continually ram the other person down, then we are being chained to them. That is a lot of control that the offending person STILL has over us.

[Tom Wetmore]

Getting even is unforgiveness in action. Letting go of that desire to get even is very freeing.

[Gail]

Tom, you're really on a roll today! Awesome! Have you really been doing some heavy thinking or run-of-the-mill pondering?

[Tom Wetmore]

Pulling together this series of topics was a bit of pondering in church today. I have for a very long time explored the depth of forgiveness. One cannot rest on forgiveness or repentance. The goal is reconciliation. And the church is to be the reconciliation commission for the world. See 2 Corinthians 5:18.

[Gail]

Ideally, true! God's love works miracles, I believe that! I'm not sure that while repentance or forgiveness are goals in themselves (maybe they are...) I do believe that they are a work for us to do. They might all 3 be miracles!

[Tom Wetmore]

Yes, they are all three divine miracle gifts. We seem naturally to seek revenge, never forget a wrong and despise those that treat us badly. It take a reprograming miracle to change the natural course of our minds.

[teresaq]

I think there are distorted views of what forgiveness means.

[cardw]

I look at many of the things we call virtues as tools for a joyful life.

In the same vein I refer to forgiveness as giving up the need to punish.

I think it is a natural outgrowth of empathy. If it was wrong to inflict pain on someone, why would it be any different to do it to another?

The only difference is the order in which it is done.

I don't believe that forgiveness removes the need to hold boundaries because forgiveness, at least for me, does not say the harmful act is OK. What forgiveness does do is give me an internal clarity and peace of mind because I think it eventually leads to understanding and acceptance.

Reconciliation is nice, but I don't believe it is required to have a good life. Sometimes we need to work apart from certain people because each person needs a certain amount of space to be themselves. Sometimes two people's visions of life walk over each other and to compromise either one would be a loss so I think it would be natural for them to work apart.

[teresaq]

I like the way you state that. We can forgive a particular person over and over but that will never make that person safe to be around.

I have heard, forgive and forget. I have come to the conclusion that that is one of those cutesy things we come up with, without stopping to think exactly what we are saying, nor the implications.

Too many times I have heard it said by those who really don't want to hear the truth. Then they would have to deal with it. Other times I have heard it said by those who continually abuse in some form. In other words, if you "forget" they can keep doing it.

I think it was Paul who said if they persecute you in one place move on. If I forgive and forget that would make me too stupid to move on, cause I would have "forgotten" with all the implications that go with it.

On the opposite side, while in some situations we forgive and from the heart, those very situations do not allow us to forget. Yet, If the other is truly repentant for the harm they have caused 'forgetting' just tends to happen for the most part. It may pop up every once in a while, memories tend to do that, most of the time it will be as tho it never happened.

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When it comes to our sins being forgiven and thrown into the deepest sea, I see God as in the same circumstances we are in. He can and does forgive us over and over, but just how on earth is He going to forget if it keeps getting thrown in his face every time He turns around?

"God, I'm sorry I yelled at my kids please forgive me". The very next minute I'm back yelling at them. As I see it God can't blot that out til I have finally gotten the victory once and for all. Then it will be as if I had never ever yelled at my kids in the first place.

[Overaged]

This is a very good point. Jesus, when He talked about forgiveness, always said "as we forgive;" we will be forgiven. But He did not ever mean, *because* we forgive; He always meant, in the way that we forgive...

[Gail]

Insightful...

[Overaged]

Tom; that text says that God has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ. What does that look like to you in work clothes?

[Tom Wetmore]

While I think that verse has very significant theological meaning that should instruct our view of salvation, I think there is a very practical element for us to consider in this part of this series of topics, the work clothes perspective. God made the first move. He took the initiative to mend the fences, set things right, bridge the relationship gap.

How often do we think we need to wait for some indication of mending their ways or feeling sorry by someone who has harmed us? It wears the cloak of superiority that we won't suck it up and extend the olive branch of forgiveness unless that mean person first apologizes. If we are to follow God's lead, we will do as he did and make the first move, every time. Really, once we develop the habit of humbling ourselves to easily forgive the wrongdoer, we are already naturally in the right posture to repent when we are the wrongdoer. That is a reprograming of our minds that gives us a new perspective. It makes reconciliation more possible.

[Tom Wetmore]

I struggled long and hard over that forgive and forget nonsense. It comes from what you suggested from a misunderstanding of God not remembering our sins anymore. We assume that if we are to follow that example we too must not remember wrongs against us. The harder I try to forget the more deeply embedded the memory becomes. I do not have a delete button on my brain.

So how does God do it? Someone once explained that verse as God not forgetting, but rather him choosing not to recall to memory our sin. That is a reorientation in his thinking of how he looks at us. We are no longer the person who did a bad thing, but a new person that has a clean record.

It is really remembering differently, a reprogramming of our mind.

[cardw]

I think we get trapped in the idea that we need to be "good" people. This causes us to use our will to put on an act. It requires us to lie to ourselves because it emphasizes the outward actions.

Forgiveness is a good idea because it makes a better quality of life. If we put our self interest to work in intelligent ways instead of reactionary ways it generally comes up with solutions that look very much like being a "good" person.

It may look like a miracle, but it is really the ability to conceive of the long term global choices. It is the acquiring of wisdom. To acquire wisdom one has to stop lying to themselves about their feelings. Trying to be a "good" person often has people passing severe judgments on their own feelings because it is unacceptable to their idea of "good."

If we would treat our feelings as a source of information instead of something that is right, wrong, good or bad, we gain a much fuller sense of what is happening around us.

90 percent of human conflict is about preferences. Most moral failure is around some issue of fear and a reactionary response to that fear. Fear is irrational and so is the response. Knowing this make me realize that most harm directed my way is not personal. It is the perception and fear of the other person creating a false world. And it is out of their immaturity and ignorance that they are making their choices. The most effective way to get them to stop is to help them get past their ignorance and fear.

I can be reactionary and strike back causing them suffering and that can be a way to educate, but my internal state would be one of resentment and this would create a tension in me that leads to my self destruction.

Giving up the need to punish or forgiveness, gives me the ability to intelligently respond is a much more effective way, which might include some initial direct means to get the harmful behavior to simply stop making it possible to have some type of conversation. And if I have the ability to empathize with the other person it gives me a tremendous window into their motivations, which helps me to know which questions to ask.

Emotions in the form of empathy help us to know ourselves and to know others. In a world where you approach it in a way that requires people to simply obey rules you are going to miss this.

Instead of motivation being out of desire and the love of something or someone, you have a world operating out of obligation and fear.

[Aliensanctuary]

Because humans are inherently selfish creatures, they have the unfortunate ability to wound others without knowing or caring. When someone wounds, harms, or takes advantage of us, we feel as if that someone is trying to diminish our worth. When we perceive that we are victims of diminishing, we tend to gravitate toward angry or revengeful feelings.

We must realize that because it's basic human nature that enables them to so easily devalue others without intention or knowledge or concern, we are probably no less guilty than those who have wounded us.

The essence of forgiveness is, then, the realization that we are all selfish creatures who are not always able to consider other's feelings resulting from the consequences of our words or actions. Thus, Jesus could forgive his tormentors because he realized they were trapped in their own selfish little world, victims of their own deaf, dumb, and blind humanity.

All of us were, at birth, trapped in our own selfish little world. While some of us, due to our environment, have been able to transcend, at least in part, our own innate myopia, others of us, for the same reason, cannot.

Once our sense of self is destroyed and we become one in spirit with the LORD, selfishness will be impossible, and therefore, it will be impossible for someone to harm another because they are us, too. This is not likely to happen in this life.

[Tom Wetmore]

Yes, Jesus forgiving them because they didn't know what they were doing was more a sense of compassion and empathy toward their ignorance and fear driven behavior. I think that insightful perspective has more practical meaning for understanding forgiveness than what has traditionally been the perspective of that act of forgiveness - that Jesus was saying that because they didn't know who he was. While that may have been a part of it, I think it was a deeper act of a forgiving spirit that looked with understanding at their plight over which they had little choice or control.

[Tom Wetmore]

Rich, I appreciate that you have brought empathy into this topic. I believe that empathy is a vital part of forgiveness. Not only does empathy enable forgiveness, empathy grows from and is strengthened by forgiveness. It may be a chicken/egg dilemma, but When one forgives it changes ones view of the one who caused the harm. It opens the door to understanding and eventually a desire to wish that person well.

And I agree that it may not does not require reconciliation. That requires reciprocal desire and action. True forgiveness fully recognizes the seriousness of the wrong done. To minimize the harm is to diminish the forgiveness. It excuses it as an act of no great consequence.

For me, disconnecting the component parts of this process as being independent of each other was a very freeing realization. Knowing that I can forgive and heal my wounds regardless of whether the one who hurt me even knows or feels sorry helps my peace of mind. And likewise, being able to be sorry without expecting another to forgive me recognizes my ownership of my own fate and future conduct without being burdened by the non-forgiver guilting my future.

[Tom Wetmore]

And yes, I agree these are elements of a joyful life. That reminds me of a delightful book I read entitled, Jesus, Man of Joy. In his instructions to his disciples he said that he was telling them those things so that they might have a complete and joyful life.

[Tom Wetmore]

I think we are seeing how profoundly our forgiving the wrongdoer changes us more than it does the forgiven. This was an eye-opener for me to realize that God forgiving us is likewise of great benefit to him. It changes God.

[Overaged]

I don't understand that concept - re how it changes God; in light of Mal 3:6 which says I am the Lord, I change not..

[cardw]

Tom,

I like the insight you bring on how to shift when someone won't forgive you. You bring a very good point in regards to giving up the need to punish oneself. When we understand that we too act out of fear and ignorance.

I don't see this as evil. I see it as a collective immaturity. If someone doesn't have the capability how can we condemn them? We can certainly condemn harmful actions and take steps to protect people the best we can as a stop gap, but I think the ultimate goal is self control through self realization and awareness. To put it simply it is growing up and learning.

Shame is really a form of fear. The problem with fear is it blinds us to awareness. The reason punishment doesn't really work as a long term solution is that it closes off the awareness of the person being punished. The only thing they become aware of is the fear of punishment. It simply becomes operant conditioning. It's the same method we use to train dogs.

I agree that forgiving increases our ability to empathize because we get the feedback of joy. At least that has been my experience. It is no great virtue on my part because I figured out that something works.

It is because we are human and we have this complex inner world that tends to make things up in the absence of evidence to make us feel safe that we have people reacting to each other. As we mature we learn how to place fear in its proper place. Most fear is irrational and based on misperception. It is a total waste of energy and instead of making us safe it tends to make our lives less safe.

I also believe that this is why people make up a god who looks over them even in the complete absence of evidence. It is because they haven't figured out how to live outside of fear and they run to the first inner place of safety they can find.

It is probably a useful stopgap, and I think it is why we find so many immature people in churches. And they tend to stay there until it stops working.

[phkrause]

Some excellent posts cardw and Tom.

[Overaged]

Ill second that