When Forgiveness Hurts but Healing Depends on It

Well, it goes one step further. what does love really look like? what I'm saying? like if we're loving our enemies and we're we're like trying to reconcile with people, you don't get to a place of reconciliation without being able to communicate the truth. And so, a lot of times we're we're loving from a distance and we're not addressing the issue. It goes back to what you said at the very beginning. It's so funny that cuz all I saw when you were sharing this was the picture of Christ on the cross. Love is painful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Love is discomfort. Sure enough. Yeah. love is carrying [music] your cross up the mountain [snorts] waiting to be crucified. I don't like the confrontation. I don't like the confrontation of having to speak truth to somebody and deal with a difficult situation. Right? And so if I'm not if I just go and I slip off and I do the forgiveness thing, maybe I write a letter and I burn it, do that whole process, but never confront the person. Am I really showing love? Because what I'm saying is that I recognize [music] an issue in an individual. I see sin in my brother. They have wronged me. And because of my pride and my unwillingness to do the uncomfortable thing, I'm willing to let them sit in their sin. That's not love at all. That's hate. We're in a conflicting society where love is accept me, accept this, comfort, that's what it is. Like it love everyone, but no, that's not what love is. And so in regard to confronting others with love, it means addressing the truth. [music] And so yo, welcome to another episode of Rebuilding Life After Addiction. here is your co-host, Robert Grant, and I got my host here, the one and only JF to the double T. I don't know what the double T is. is. is. What does that even mean? We're like opening the show looking very spiritual today. I have a Bible on my lap. I've got coffee here. Yeah, my coffee has been done like ages ago, dude. nurse of mine. This is like called cup number six today. So, what verse did you share with me earlier? earlier? earlier? Yeah, we came from Matthew 5 23- 24. Sweet. Sweet. Sweet. Check it out. It says therefore if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you leave your gift there before the altar and go your way first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift and then it goes on to say agree with your adversary quickly while you are on the way with him lest your adversary deliver you to the judge hand you over to the officer and you be thrown into prison surely I say to you will by no means get out of there until you have paid the last penny. Dude, when I read that this morning as I'm going through the Bible, the Lord just pressed on my heart when I was walking my dog the other day to get back into the Gospels. And so, where better to start than Matthew, right? sometimes they say start in John. Yeah. But I've been in the Gospel of Matthew and this just wrecked me this morning because it caused me to reflect back on some of the past relationships that I had or some things that I've been unwilling to address. And I think at times we could look at this verse and clearly understand in the world that we live in today in modern culture and society the offering or the sacrifice that we bring to the altar generally can be associated with a tithe. Right? But it goes beyond that. Right. I think sometimes it's not just about us offering up our money to God but it's offering up our praise, our service. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And I think there are some things to do all things unto the Lord to do it well. Right. And so, man, when you don't have a right heart and when you are wrestling with this unforgiveness, this hatred within your heart, which he actually talks about furthermore before this passage about how it's considered murder. murder. murder. Yeah. and so he's "Man, I need you to deal with this hateful, murderous spirit that you have deep within you before you can come to me." Yeah. Yeah. That's good. So, how do we culture today, right? It's like disagreement, disagreement, disagreement, especially in the world of everything being hyperpoliticized, disagreement is also oftentimes viewed as hate. Yeah. like and so how do we navigate that especially as Christians right in today's culture because the scripture is clear here like when you show up at church you write your check and you got all this offense going on and like you're giving the Lord your money you're but you're not being obedient. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. what I'm saying? Like the church will take your money but God's rejecting your gift, right? right? right? So like what do you like how do we navigate that? is I've seen especially in the last several years, right, where it just is disagreement between people that I know from church that I've seen in different churches and whatnot that used to be best of friends, but they have either disagreements with something that's happening in culture, something that's happening politically, and then it turns into this type of offense and hate. And so, how do we get into I guess the question I'm trying to get to is how do we get to this place where as Christians like we can like disagree without it devolving right into because this is a relevant conversation right now, ? No, it is, man. And I the first thing that comes to my mind is our pride. But we don't have all the answers to everything. Yeah. And we have to understand how to be better listeners. And speaking from experience and from an individual that has dealt with addiction and trauma and all types of hang-ups and hurts from my past, I've gotten really good at suppressing the things that I don't want to address. Yeah, that's good. And there's resistance there when it comes to me having to address these matters because it's me having to face the very elephant that's in the room. Mhm. And so it's easy for me to look busy and to appear to others that I'm doing well and everything's under control and I have no issues and I come to the meetings with a smiley face and I'm dressed the part and my family looks all put together. But in reality, because nobody can see it, I have all these skeletons in my closet. Yeah. and I don't address them and I don't deal with them because I'm not really able to have that conversation without lashing out as the young kids would say crashing out nowadays, and so like I [snorts] feel for me, man, I dealt with this recently and if I can just be transparent and honest, like I had an issue when we moved out to California and my wife's uncle, hurt me pretty had. And there was a season in my life where I said to myself, "Man, I forgive this man and the Holy Spirit brought it to my attention when we did this time. We what was it called?" It was a life map. It was an assignment that we had for leadership. And we did this life map. And during this life map, I was speaking about him and I just wept and I was in tears. And it was a vulnerable moment because I was in a room full of others and I'm out here speaking and I just began to cry as I'm like sharing this intimate moment with the audience about how he's impacted me and like what he had done. And it was in that moment that I realized that I hadn't truly forgiven him. him. him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I was still holding on to something like it broke me that bad. And I ended up having a conversation with him. And I was talking to my wife about this morning in the bed. And I said, "Hey, it's pretty interesting how me releasing him is beneficial for me, but also it allowed me to understand that I didn't have to tolerate him anymore." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And I think there's a big difference between forgiving someone and then tolerating somebody. And I think sometimes like you don't have to tolerate that character, that foolishness, that arrogance, that pride, whatever it is that they do, right? right? right? But you do need to forgive, [snorts] right? Because you've been forgiven. Isn't it interesting how like I notic and it's me and I hear it with other people, but I know I have a tendency sometimes when I'm looking at grievances or issues that I've had with particular people. What I end up doing is like I end up thinking of the worst possible scenario and then I work back from that and use that as justification to not forgive, right? It's well, Jesus wouldn't expect me to forgive if they had abused me, right? Jesus wouldn't expect me to forgive if they had done this. Insert the worst thing here. It's the same thing people do with the abortion argument, right? They say, "Well, what about rape and incest?" And the rest of us are "Well, what about the other 99% of the abortions?" Right? Right? Right? let's let's talk about those. what I'm saying? And so we have this tendency to whenever there's a conflict or an issue we have to deal with, we like imagine the worst possible scenario and then we use that as an excuse to not forgive or not do the right thing period, right? And so it's it's hard because like what you just said is powerful. Like yes, there was a conflict, there was an issue, but what about all the other good things, right, right, right, that had happened? Yeah. what about the character of God in that person, the life of God that exist in that person and the areas that they have impacted you positively? Yeah. versus letting the disagreement or the main grievance, right, right, right, blow the whole relationship up. Well, what's wild, I'm grateful that you brought that up because it allowed me to realize one, Mike, if you ever do get the opportunity to listen to this, I still love you, man. you're an amazing individual. You actually showed me a lot about myself that I never knew was there to begin with. and have drawn out some great potential and some character qualities that needed to be developed through the workspace that you've opened up for me. But I want to go on to sharing something that you mentioned about how we can ignore the good that happens and what it brings about. And here I am, I lose my train of thought. Holy Spirit, help me. well, I think we have when I can jump in there while you're getting it back, but we have the tendency to catastrophize every situation, right? Right. It's And I'm I'm terrible at that. Like I'm one of those people that a little bit ADHD, constantly thinking three steps ahead. And so that can be really good with vision mapping and planning for the future and doing things at a much faster pace than most other people would do. But man, it's got its downsides, right? Because when something bad happens, I'm also thinking three steps further. Well, I wonder who else they told. I wonder what else happened. They must have meant more than they actually said. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. they planned for this thing to happen. And very rarely I know I have a like we don't give the I don't give the benefit of the doubt all the time. Like when somebody does me wrong, I'm only thinking about how it impacted me and maybe not looking beyond that and saying, "Hey, what was going on in their life at that moment?" It doesn't justify the behavior, but it can bring some context. Yeah. so the point that I wanted to make was what if the very grievances that we have were meant as an opportunity for God to use to build something up in us. us. us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because the great commandments are love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and then love your neighbor as yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's easy to love those that love you. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. It's harder to love those that disagree with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it not strange that scripture tells us that what the enemy meant for evil, God intended for good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so these are not moments of setbacks, but they're actually moments of set up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's I love what your wife said a long time ago, and I'll take this was a decade ago. I remember chapel service she shared this message and she was using the illustration of a bow and an arrow and she said with greater resistance comes greater distance. distance. distance. And so there's there's resistance that happens in these moments. It's like it's God bringing you through a fire to refine you because there's something in you that he had to use with the individual that caused the offense to bring you to a place of intimacy with him so that he could heal because it wasn't the person that affected you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a it was something that was unressed way before this individual. This just happened to burst the bubble. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. what ? Yeah. I think it was Mr. Craig Rochelle said some to the effect of we're most offended by like what we're offended about in others is typically the thing that we're dealing with the most inside of us, right? And so a lot of times it's it's what they do that offends us. It's really not even the action. There's a deficiency in us that we haven't dealt with and it drives us to this place of being easily offended cuz it's it's funny the things that will irritate me, the things that woken under my skin, right? Like I can be cursed out, and whatever. Just walk away. Like I don't need to, somebody wants to honk or drive like an idiot. I'm not doing the road rage thing. But then somebody will just say something minor, right? right? right? And it was it will hit an issue inside of me and it's like I got to get revenge for that. I got to deal with that. And it's funny you talk about that. Jesus doesn't give us a pass the next few verses. you go down Matthew chapter 5 and go the second mile, right? Talking about literally, what, with the Roman soldiers, literally ch volunteering. They're forcing you to go a mile with all their gear, doing the second mile, and then going further again. No more pass. Love your enemies. yeah. so I've got to deal with issues with the people that are my brother and your family, spiritually, whatever. whatever. whatever. Right. But then I've also got to be able to like love my enemies as well. And that is What does that say about us though? And I think sometimes is what do they say? We act like our stuff don't stink. Right. Right. Right. And mine doesn't. I'm just saying it's always somebody else. We'll always point the finger. We always look at the speck in someone else's eye, but ignore the log that's in our own. And I think the reason why we do that is because we're afraid to be worked on. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's why the people that you put around you matters a lot. lot. lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because like if I'm not around people and we're not around people that we can like trust. Like we've got to love everybody, but we don't have to bring everybody into our home, right? And so I think that like I need people that when I'm dealing with some of this and like that I can straight up say, "Hey, I've got an issue with what you just said to me." Right. Right. Right. And the response isn't going to be met with boxing gloves. what I'm saying? It's going to be met with, "Well, let's unpack that together." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's why a lot of times we end up in some, especially with Matthew, the verses that we read talking about if your brother has something against you. I think a lot of times we end up in more conflict than necessary because we're really not intentional about who's in our life in the first place. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're we're rubbing the wrong way with people that really we shouldn't have had in our lives and we're creating conflict and really by not removing people or not being more discerning. Yeah. It's impacting our walk with God, right? right? right? Because we've just allowed anybody even the scripture talks about be careful who you allow to lay hands on you. like and we're like a bunch of spiritual junkies these days. think about word from the Lord the words we're receiving from people who have no credibility on social media, right? right? right? And like we'll hear it and yeah, but I think I don't want to go into all that, but it's just important to be sure. sure. sure. So let me ask you this, Justin. Then what does that really mean then to because we've addressed some of the issues when it comes to the offense and all that, but what does it actually mean to reconcile with that person? Right? Like I know that you talked about going the extra mile. I know that you talked about loving your enemy. and but like let's break this down. Unpack it practically like because that's the hard part, right? It's almost like vision casting like everybody can share a vision but it's actually executing on that vision that's the hard part right so it's like man I want to do this I want to share this with this person maybe they are dead right and I don't have that ability to do that what does that look like like yeah I think well I think there's there's two layers to that right number one is it like obviously you can only do your half Right? So you can't force anybody to engage. Reconciliation is an important thing, but it requires work on both parties. So if you've got an individual that's willing to reconcile, of course, then you can extend forgiveness. You can walk through what that looks how are you made whole, and figure that part out. But if they're not willing to reconcile, then that's more of an internal spiritual thing that you've got to deal with, right? Or maybe they're not safe. Let's go to the extreme, right? Maybe they're not safe. Like you can forgive them, extend forgiveness, all of that, but like I would never suggest somebody bring an abuser back in their home, right? right? right? Like that's just common sense, ? So you really have to figure out what the relationship looks ? And I've even gone so far man, Teen Challenge, we've had people on staff that have literally stolen from us like while working for us, right? They leave, they go out, they relapse, they call, they need help, and we let them back in. and most people would say maybe that wasn't smart, but like in those scenarios, I would always pray through it and always extend grace, in those type of moments. Now, now sometimes it backfire absolutely. absolutely. absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But like pray for those who spitefully use you, right? right? right? what I'm saying? Bless them. And I think each individual's got to determine like who they can allow back in, in dealing with some of these situations, right? No, that's good, man. No, I like that. It's it's hard, right? And I love what Paul says that we've been given the ministry of reconciliation. And I think that's the heart, right? As the father reconciles us back to him, it's our mission and assignment to reconcile others back unto him. because as it has been freely given so freely give and I think often at times why this is such a challenging passage of scripture is because we haven't yet learned how to receive it oursel and so how could we offer something that we've yet to receive ourselves yet we'll say well go I can forgive others but I can't forgive myself or I've been forgiven by God but I'm not going to forgive that person because of what they've done it's like hey hold on have you truly receive that forgiveness that you claim you've received, ? And so, well, it goes one step further. what does love really look like? what I'm saying? like if we're loving our enemies and we're we're like trying to reconcile with people, you don't get to a place of reconciliation without being able to communicate the truth. And so, a lot of times we're we're loving from a distance and we're not addressing the issue. It goes back to what you said at the very beginning. I don't like the confrontation. I don't like the confrontation of having to speak truth to somebody and deal with a difficult situation, right? And so if I'm not if I just go and I slip off and I do the forgiveness thing, maybe I write a letter and I burn it, do that whole process, but never confront the person. Am I really showing love? love? love? be because what I'm saying is that I recognize an issue in an individual. I see sin in my brother. They've wronged me and because of my pride and my unwillingness to do the uncomfortable thing, I'm willing to let them sit in their sin. That's not love at all. That's hate. It's so funny that because all I saw when you were sharing this was the picture of Christ on the cross. Love is painful. Yeah. Love is discomfort. Sure enough. Yeah. love is carrying your cross up the mountain [snorts] waiting to be crucified. The point that I wanted to make to that is because we are we're in a conflicting society where love is accept me, accept this, comfort, if we want to get into the LGBTQ RS TUV movement. [snorts] that's what it is. Like it love everyone, but no, that's not what love is. And so I know that has really nothing to do with this passage of scripture, but in regard to confronting others with love, it means addressing the truth. And so, and that's where it goes back to, right? Because we got to like go first your way and then be reconciled, then come back, right? Go reconcile with the brother. Go confront them. them. them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go deal with the issue. Yeah. then come back and bring your gift. Yeah. And that has to happen first, right? And love is also like that part of reconciliation and love and all of that. Like God desires to reconcile us to himself, right? right? right? But also part of this is that not everybody will be reconciled, right? right? right? And some will be rejected, right? right? right? Like that's the part of eternity we don't talk about a lot. Like and it's it's doomsday turner burn preaching whatever. It's just it's the truth. It's the gospel, right? right? right? Like everybody has an opportunity to go to heaven. But the unfortunate part, not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord." So some of that is that if like people reject it or the person you're trying to deal with rejects the reconciliation, you dust your feet, man. Then you move on. Got to Yep. Yep. Yep. You have to dust your feet, man. That's awesome, dude. So we're good. 130. 130. 130. we're good. Yeah. Yeah. You want to Yeah. Well, that's awesome, man. I think that's a great stopping point. Did you have one more thing you wanted to add? No. I just wanted to challenge whoever's listening to this just to like ask the Holy Spirit before you can even like enter into prayer. I think just Lord search my heart. pray the psalm of David. Ask the father to search your heart and have him reveal that to you. I think sometimes we miss the fact that we've been given the promise of the helper, the pariclete, the Holy Spirit. and he leads us into all truth. And so, let him lead you today and guide you into that truth so that you can love your neighbor well. and that's what we desire for you here at Rebuilding Life After Addiction. Thank you.