DO WE HAVE TO FORGET TO FORGIVE?
By: Pastor Jack Guyler
Is it possible to forgive and then forget what has happened to you?
The answer is no. God does not expect us to forget nor are we wired to forget as human beings. As you read through what Jesus teaches on forgiveness, He calls us to forgive others so that animosity, disdain, resentment, envy and bitterness don’t squeeze the good out of our hearts. He also calls us to forgive in the face of knowing what others have said or done to us. The truth is, we can’t forgive what we can’t remember.
People will try to suppress or live in denial of something that has happened to them to reduce the pain. This is a normal reaction to pain, but the anger and bitterness that was caused by the hurt, usually resurfaces at another time. And usually, it is at an inopportune time and toward people who have not hurt us. Have you ever had a bad day at work, but you don’t say anything to the person who caused you to have a bad day? Instead, you come home and take it out on your family. What went unresolved in one space will emerge in another – usually hurting the people you don’t want to hurt. This is one reason why Jesus taught to confront or address people who have hurt or offended you.
Addressing the hurt will help bring resolution and lead to forgiveness. And forgiveness will lead to reconciliation of the relationship. This is Jesus’ other reason for confrontation. It is like cleaning out a wound so that it can heal and not just continue to fester.
Now, let’s get back to the question, can we forgive and forget? Sometimes with small offenses, over time we will forget what someone said or did. But most people are wired to remember to some degree that when they see a person who has done something negative to them, it will at least cross their minds (research shows that humans have a negative bias).
It will cross our minds, not because we haven’t forgiven, but because our subconscious minds never forget anything that has ever happened to us. It records everything. Have you had the experience where you can’t remember someone’s name, but then sometime later you remember it? It’s not that you totally forgot their name, it just got stuck in your subconscious mind and took a while to retrieve it. This is why we can’t forgive and forget.
Forgiveness is not having amnesia. Forgiving is making the decision to forgive and then trusting God to take you through the process of forgiving. We might ask, doesn’t God expect for us to forgive and forget the things that have happened to us since He forgets what we have done?
It does say in passages such as Jeremiah 31:34, Hebrews 8:12 and Isaiah 43:25 that God remembers our sins no more. But this doesn’t mean that God gets amnesia or has a bad memory. Rather it means He chooses not to see us and treat us as our sin would deserve, but rather treats us as people who have been forgiven and cleansed from sin (1 John 1:9). So, no God doesn’t expect something of us that He himself doesn’t do.
We can forgive without forgetting. In fact, we can’t forgive until we remember the things others have said or done to us. It is at that point; we decide to forgive and then trust God to change our hearts to fully forgive them.
