As their father lay dying, Jacob used trickery to steal the blessing due his brother Esau. It was the second time he one-upped his older brother, having seized Esau’s birthright over a bowl of stew when they were younger.
The wound was likely deep and gaping, and without proper treatment, there was a real risk that it would infect other aspects of life.
All of us have experienced relational injury and pain at some point. Often it comes without warning, exacerbating the pain. Sometimes it invokes a cavernous sense of betrayal, especially when the situation seems discriminatory, dismissive, or deceptive. Untreated, it can leave us bewildered, disillusioned, and embittered.
Forgive and move on, we are advised. But what if we don’t feel safe and trust remains unrestored? In those instances, forgiveness can appear to be the equivalent of slapping a Band-Aid on something requiring stitches.
Have you found yourself in a similar situation?
Being in relationship is taxing. Genesis 3, where Eve and Adam disobeyed God in the garden, shows us how quickly sin ruined man’s relationship with God.
How do we move from hurt to health?
Among the practical steps that we can take is investing in the hard work associated with loving one another, which can lead to forgiveness.
Love is messy, risky, selfless, and far too many believers do not take this to heart. Love is the motivation toward unity, but loving someone is hard work. It’s not a syrupy, “All You Need is Love” Beatles refrain. It’s not romanticized sentimentality. When love fails, it seems out of touch with our own emotions, hampering our ability to address breaches in relationships through a healthy process of reconciliation. But Scripture is clear. We must work through strife.
Ephesians 4:31-32 tells us, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (English Standard Version).
Colossians, often described as Paul’s twin letter to Ephesians, offers a similar mandate, “bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13, ESV).
So how do we broach such reconciliation?
First, we need to understand the difference between reconciliation and conciliation. Unfortunately, we tend to throw the word reconciliation around too loosely. Since reconciliation involves a dispute between two parties who were previously at peace, if there is no relationship, reconciliation is off the table.
In such instances, we are more accurately described as processing through conciliation, which is working to establish peace. In other words, building that initial relationship of trust. If we are to build — and maintain — strong foundational relationships, we must avoid dismissive practices. Two of the biggest culprits I see are canceling and sugar-coating.
If we are to build — and maintain — strong foundational relationships, we must avoid dismissive practices.
With cancel culture, we condemn and minimize those who disagree with us, an approach known as tribalism. With this mindset, we no longer engage in or allow for healthy dialogue with those who sincerely and legitimately differ in conviction, persuasion, or opinion. Doing so doesn’t allow for matters of conscience, and it undermines the teaching in Romans 14, which admonishes us not to judge one another. I have had to repent of this practice too many times.
Sugarcoating comes when we, intentionally or not, dismiss a person’s grievance with another without patiently listening and identifying with their wounds. This happens when we begin pressuring them to love or forgive without understanding the situation. Rather than walking with the battered soul until they are in an emotionally and spiritually healthy place of forgiveness, we offer “surface-level” responses, disconnected from emotional or spiritual sensitivity.
Exercising this level of spiritual discipline takes work and time. Many Western practitioners of Christianity have become too lazy to invest such time and work. I find it takes the Holy Spirit working in my life — along with obedience to the objective Truth of the whole of God’s Word, not just favorite verses or parts of Scripture that do not include the whole context — to walk with someone on the road of forgiveness.
Through decades of ministry, I have discovered there is a distinct difference between forgiveness and restored trust. Forgiveness is a choice driven by a desire to release the offender from a justified consequence for wrong(s) incurred by the offender(s), while restored trust is a delicate, tedious, and unpredictable process. In addition to this, forgiveness only takes one person, the person offended. Reconciliation, on the other hand, always requires at least two people. When developed properly, trust is a place of mutually shared valuing of one another’s imago Dei. That place and posture must be shared consistently — not perfectly — for trust to be established, maintained, and restored.
Forgiveness only takes one person, the person offended. Reconciliation, on the other hand, always requires at least two people.
As we practice the biblical act of forgiveness, let us resolve to avoid the comfortable corners of tribalism, while also preparing our hearts to do the hard work, whether we seek it or extend it.
