Needed: Clarity on Forgiveness and Reconciliation

There is probably no teaching so messed up among Christians as the topic of forgiveness and reconciliation. Some subjects may come close , but this one has to be at the top. Rather than clarity and sound counsel, Christians often get mixed messages on the subject from pastors, counselors and articles, making difficult situations worse.

Related to the subject of forgiveness is the issue of reconciling with those who have injured us. Separate issues, but sometimes not treated as such. I will give you just one example of why sorting this out, particularly as Christians who are commanded to forgive others, is so important.

Years ago, a relative in my extended family targeted me for harassment and extreme emotional abuse.  I was barely out of my teen years when he decided specifically that I would make a handy weapon to get back at my father for some long held grievance.  It wasn’t hard to see why I was targeted. With the advantage of age,  I completely get why I was the one, and not one of my siblings. I was sensitive and easily hurt, quick to react and eager to please. I was also too inexperienced and young to know what was really going on behind it all. The extent to which the relative meddled in my private life would shock. He even involved my two little boys.  It went on for eleven years at its worst.

Finally, deciding that the self-created drama and excitement of provoking and harming someone who had never done anything to him was getting old, the perpetrator gave a lukewarm, “Sorry we (he had his wife and son participate as well) got involved.”  Not, “I’m sorry I targeted you in the most vicious fashion possible with  ongoing lies, gossip, slander and meddling. We behaved in an evil fashion and harmed you terribly. I am sorry, will you forgive me?” Just, “Sorry we got involved.”

Young and eager to do the right thing, I reached out, invited the perp and his family to our home, fed them from our table, and tried to let the emotional harm stay behind in the dust. But the story did not end there. It was not long when the trust and attempts at involving these people back in my life were met with further betrayal. This happened several  times in the next few years. Needless hurt once again occurred, trust shattered, emotional pain inflicted. A familiar set of dynamics surfaced,  distracting me from my primary calling as wife and mother and causing old wounds to reopen.

So what had happened?  Hadn’t I rushed to forgive like Jesus? Hadn’t I spent years trying to show that I had put the past in the past and moved on in love?  I recently came upon an article that was tremendously helpful in understanding what had happened in this particular situation.  It also shed a clear and helpful light on other situations I have struggled with as a Christian who wants to live in the light of forgiveness, and, yes, see reconciliation. ( I have seen precious little of the latter in my  life. I can count the time on a couple fingers of  one hand where I have seen real, true healing of relationships. Hatred and pride are the default settings for most professing believers today.)

The excellent article I have linked to below points out something very basic. Letting go of the wrongs that people have done to us is one issue. We are called to do this. We also have to do it or become sick with anger and grudge holding. But reconciliation is something else entirely. THAT is predicated on repentance by the offending party. Real repentance. Not a pragmatic, fake “sorry.” Going back to the so-called apology by the person who targeted me, with the advantage of years gone by, I see now what the problem was. The entire “apology” was a non-apology. The only thing the person was sorry for was that poking me with pins like an insect on a display board was no longer entertaining and had actually screwed up any hope of having family gatherings, something he decided he wanted after all. It served his purposes to say a quick sorry. And I was naive enough to buy it

We must forgive people, but one thing we cannot do is force reconciliation, no matter how much we yearn for it. Those who refuse to see the harm their behavior is doing when confronted with it and instead chose to marinate in the raw sewage  of hate cannot be allowed back into our lives. When those involved claim to be “Christians”, they make an ugly mockery of the Savior they claim to follow. We reward those who mock Jesus when we rush to embrace those who aren’t in the least sorry for what they have done. In fact, many don’t even see that they’ve done anything wrong at all.

Something else happens when we try to force reconciliation.  We bring on ourselves the time- wasting, unprofitable distraction of endless relational drama and emotional chaos. Narcissists, bullies, sociopaths who are in our lives can literally serve as human wrecking balls. They produce false guilt in those who long for reconciliation and healing. Their projection of their sin onto their victims is one of the hallmarks of this kind of person. They are divisive, and they enjoy what destroys a normal person. These people need to be removed from our lives permanently if at all possible. Satan lives in the tumult they create. We are called to peace as believers.

I know there are those reading this blog who are struggling with this in their lives. The article I referenced by April Kelsey is excellent and gives biblical examples. I would also warn, as a side note,  that some things that comes out of the “biblical counseling” movement need to be taken cautiously. Much of it is simply not biblical at all and strengthens abusers rather than get to the core of these situations that can destroy lives—lives intended to bring glory to God, not Satan.

A quote from Kelsey’s article:

When Joseph’s brothers show up at the palace where Joseph is governor, Joseph doesn’t even reveal to them who he is. Instead, he sets his brother Benjamin up as a thief and threatens to enslave him to see how his brothers react. Only when Judah, the one who sold Joseph into slavery, offers to take Benjamin’s place for the sake of their father does Joseph reveal his identity, extend forgiveness, and invite his brothers to be reconciled (see Genesis 44).

Here is what Joseph didn’t do:

– Joseph didn’t hop the first chariot down to Canaan when he became governor.

– He didn’t show up at his brothers’ house and request a private audience with his abusers.

– He didn’t say, “Forgive me for being angry all these years over my enslavement. It was wrong.”

– He didn’t say, “Despite how you might feel about me now, I want us to have a good relationship.”

Joseph didn’t even allow himself to be alone in the same room with his brothers until he saw that they were fully repentant.

The same scenario plays out in many other Bible stories. Reconciliation is only offered when the offending party demonstrates true repentance.

Those who do not repent are not entitled to reconciliation…

Read the whole article here.

And, I would add, trying to force reconciliation, because you want it so much, will ultimately  end up in failure and further spiritual damage.

 

 

 

 

Helpful Links for Those Struggling to Understand

Given the surprising recent number of hits on articles I have posted in previous years about toxic relationships, I’m going to post some further article links here that will hopefully give additional insight. Each year at this time, there is an uptick in online searches on topics related to dysfunctional family systems. The holidays have a way of resurrecting issues many thought they had buried. These are just listed FYI, and may be of some help on the subject.

Verbal and Emotional Abuse – this is a helpful list of behaviors that, once understood, can be better avoided. Take special note of the term “gaslighting.” No other toxic behavior of destructive people (the ones I call the Human Wrecking Balls) is as effective at destroying others as this one. When you toy with someone’s mind and perception of reality for specific ends, it is evil on steroids. Narcissists create the instability that they then can falsely finger as the source of the problem. Very clever. Identify this behavior and walk away.

Selfishness and Narcissistic Family Systems

Narcissists Force Co-Dependent Relationships

I have more to share and will add some in coming days. Conservative Christians are often so busy inveighing against the evils of psychology, it’s a little embarrassing to realize that narcissistic sociopaths are explained and defined down to their last method in psychology text books around the world, while those with their Bible raised aloft frequently seem to know only how to further enable the perpetrators. This explains why people in the corporate world are frequently seen on the front pages of newspapers for losing their platforms and jobs for destructive behavior, while pastors and other Christian leaders can continue on for decades untouched by consequences. They are surrounded by those who claim to believe in God and his Word, and yet they enable the most unspeakable evil done in Christ’s name. Those injured are shunned and discarded.

If people can identify these behaviors for what they are, whether in churches or in families, it’s step one in ensuring that more lives are not destroyed by this kind of thing. If many people, Christians in particular, were aware of what this grotesque, malignant pride does and how it manifests in relationships, there would be a great deal more hope for salvaging lives before untold damage is done to health and to faith. Yes, it is all sin, but seeing the enemy of soul’s devices is a first step toward resisting.

Faith. The greatest damage, beyond the emotional and psychological, is done to faith. The question asked by the “little people” when they see God “using” these “great workers for God” is this: If this, God, is what you have to use to advance your kingdom, what exactly is being advanced when it’s built on the bones of victims? It becomes very difficult for those injured, sometimes horribly crippled, by soul-destroying people, to understand what exactly they are following when God seems to put his own stamp of endorsement on “Bible-believing”, conservative leaders who grind those closest to them under their cloven hooves – behind the scenes, where nobody can see it or hear the cries for help. Or, should I say, where nobody will listen to the cries for help.

It is not godly to be silent on these issues, contrary to the pietistic thought of many in churches or families. One of the greatest tools of the enemy is to convince those injured in Christ’s name that they are “suffering for Jesus” by saying nothing and not sharing what they have learned. Persecution by the world and declared enemies of Christ is bad enough, and we are told to expect it. Abuse wielded under cover of a Christian banner and churches and ministries is quite another. All silence does in cases like that is lengthen the victim list. And that is a terrible thing.