I'm offering another Nouwen re-post today. I have found forgiveness to be the greatest stronghold of the enemy of men's souls in both myself and others. I've encountered no other teaching of Jesus which is as clear and yet is denied by so many otherwise mature Christians. There are in fact, entire doctrines built on the idea that Jesus really isn't saying what he plainly is. Here, Nouwen encapsulates the idea well. We must learn to partner in the hard work with Christ that is required to surrender the hurt and anger of offenses inflicted on us.
Remember Jesus' question to the blind paralytic, "Do you want to be well?" (John 5:1-5) Do we? If we do, we must surrender our own ideas of justice and submit instead to Christ's.
Healing Our Hearts Through Forgiveness
How can we forgive those who do not want to be forgiven? Our deepest desire is that the forgiveness we offer will be received. This mutuality between giving and receiving is what creates peace and harmony. But if our condition for giving forgiveness is that it will be received, we seldom will forgive! Forgiving the other is first and foremost an inner movement. It is an act that removes anger, bitterness, and the desire for revenge from our hearts and helps us to reclaim our human dignity. We cannot force those we want to forgive into accepting our forgiveness. They might not be able or willing do so. They may not even know or feel that they have wounded us.
The only people we can really change are ourselves. Forgiving others is first and foremost healing our own hearts.
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