Now let us know why it is difficult to Forgive...

Encouragement

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• Forgiveness

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ARTICLES OF ENCOURAGEMENT, HEALING, WHOLENESS & QUESTIONING GOD

Why Is It So Difficult to Forgive?

June 11 2020

There’s a reason you and I struggle with forgiveness.

But I don’t think it’s because of how deeply we’ve been wounded by another.

Having ministered to women for nearly three decades, I have come to believe that the main reason we often don’t forgive those who offend us is because we have several misconceptions about what forgiveness really means.

Do any of these conditions (or excuses) sound like yours?

• I’m still dealing with the consequences of how that person hurt me, so I’m not about to forgive that person.  

• Why should I forgive a person who has never apologized?

• I’ll forgive him when he proves that he has changed.

• I never got resolution from this before he died so now I will have to live with his offense — and the inability to forgive him — forever.

• I refuse to let that person back into my life so forgiveness is not an option.

• I’ve lost track of that person through the years, so I can’t initiate forgiveness.

• What that person did to me wasn’t right so I can’t bring myself to let him/her off the hook.

Forgiveness is quite difficult, and in some ways impossible, if we believe we must first receive an apology from the person who offended us. Likewise, we will have difficulty forgiving another person if we are expecting that person to show remorse or evidence of having changed. We can also tend to believe that if we forgive someone, we are giving them a license to hurt us again. I think mostly, though, we withhold our forgiveness because we don’t feel another person has earned it.