"Forgive and Forget"

Forgiveness – Selected quotes from Beth Moore’s Get Out of that Pit

“Forgiveness is not about feeling. It’s about willing.”

“Forgiveness was the force that kept Christ, by His own submission, nailed to that cross.”

“Forgiveness is not passivity…. It is power.”

“In the power of Jesus, first you will it [forgiveness] and soon you’ll feel it. Start today. Confirm it tomorrow. And keep confirming it by faith as the will of god for you in Christ Jesus until you walk it by sight.”

“The Christian experience teems with so many paradoxes. Among them is the fact that it takes far more strength and personal fortitude to fall on our knees and submit to God than to stand and fight our endless battles for significance. Don’t let anyone make you think that forgiveness is a covenant with weakness. Nothing demands more elbow grease than thrusting your arms forward and giving God the solitary right to vengeance.”

On Blaming God – Selected quotes from Beth Moore’s Get Out of That Pit

“Satan has no more effective weapon in his arsenal than to make us question – not so much whether God exists, but whether God is really good.”

“For Satan to talk us into distrusting God and distancing ourselves from Him is to keep us broken, ineffective, and frankly, out of his hair.”

“At the end of the Book of Job, its protagonist didn’t have his original questions answered either, but this he knew: his God was huge, his God was wise, and his God would redeem.”

I am currently reading Beth Moore’s book Get Out of That Pit (in case you didn’t figure that out already). The statements above caught my attention mostly because I have found them to be extremely true in my experience.

In particular, I enjoyed the section on forgiveness. In my life, this topic was huge for a long time… meaning that I needed to forgive some things. It is really very much the case that to forgive is an act of the will. Often it is an act of the will that occurs over and over and over until I actually live as if (because it’s true) I have forgiven someone.

A few years ago someone told me that I needed to “forgive and forget” when a particular situation occurred. After reading this section in Moore’s book, I have been thinking about that situation and the phrase “forgive and forget”. It’s pretty much a ridiculous phrase.

I think that when the Bible says that “their sins … I will remember no more” (Hebrews 10:17), God was referring to the act of not holding sin against us because we have been forgive. He was not actually saying that he completely forgets the sin occurred.

I find it paradoxical that people often take this same view of God’s statement but then turn around and say that we as humans should actually “forget” the offense, using “forget” in the context of not at all remembering that sin occurred.

When a parent dishes out grace to a child, forgiveness occurs. However, if that parent did not remember what the child did to get into that spot, he would do the child a disservice. For if the child begins to have a recurring behavior, the parent who truly “forgot” the offense would have difficulty beginning to correct a behavior pattern.

Likewise, in relationships with other people, it may be necessary to willingly forgive an offense or sin against me. As with God and with parents, if I know the behavior or sin that caused the initial problem, I am more likely to be able to recognize patterns of unhealthy and sinful behavior. This allows me to set up healthy boundaries in order that I can live in a way that honors both God and the people around me.

It also provides for being able to approach someone with a request to discontinue unhealthy behavior. This, of course, may not always be well received by the other party. I can’t control their behavior or reactions. But I can control mine.