Post #12 in a Tale of Two Covenants
Whoever said to forgive and forget was a fraud.
Okay, maybe not a fraud, but definitely not correct about it.
Because Charles had called her out of the blue. And he’d wanted them to talk. In a panic, Anne had ended the call, her heart pounding a mile a minute. Because he would probably ask her to forgive him and maybe she could do that. But forgetting? Nah, she couldn’t do it.
She had a mind that never forgot. Which is why forgive and forget was such a miserable deal for her.
Forgive, yes. Forget? Nah. But she tried. There were systems she used to help her forget.
But on Sundays, in church of all places, triggered by one little phrase- search your heart– the memories of weeks, months and even years, would come flooding back, proof that all her efforts to forgive were futile.
Her phone had started to ring again. Charles calling… again. Slowly, she had reached for the phone and told herself she was being ridiculous. She could talk to him.
“Hello?” she’d said again.
Charles had sounded, well, different. She wasn’t sure what it was, which is why she had agreed to see him. And talk. She wasn’t sure what about. But she was definitely sure she didn’t want to go down that path again.
She had almost been getting used to life without Charles. Almost. She didn’t need this. Which is why she wanted to know what to do with all the feelings of anger, hurt and betrayal she felt when it came to her ex-boyfriend.
She weighed her options. She had very few: listen to him, forgive him, and move on.
Because it didn’t matter what he was going to say, she had to forgive and forget the past for herself and move on. But how was she going to do that? She was meeting Charles tomorrow and a hard knot tightened in her stomach every time she thought about it.
Anne had three friends- Sandy, Esi and Janet. She looked around the small café table where all four of them sat and wondered whether she was the only one who felt this way about the matter of forgiveness. So she asked.
Sandy said she just moved on. She didn’t allow herself to stress about what she couldn’t change.
Esi was much more circumspect, so there was no help from her there… which is what circumspect answers usually did when it came to serious matters.
It was Janet who said there was nowhere in the Bible which asked us to forgive and forget. Only to forgive. Because forgiving was hard enough. We didn’t need it to be more complicated. Thank you very much.
Anne sat up, about to challenge her friend. It sounded too good to be true.
“I know that look,” Janet said, looking at the way Anne was poised to say something. “But there was this strange teacher I had back in primary school. She stayed for only a year. But she taught us a song in Primary Four. I thought it was the weirdest song ever. But then, it made sense because Monica and Sika, the two class divas, had been fighting during break time. So of course, that meant their gangs of girls were also involved. I can’t even remember what we were fighting about. I was in Sika’s group, and it got messy- girls screaming and pulling of hair and all that.
“We ended up in the Principal’s office. Long and short, when we got back to class, our teacher, Miss Felicia, told us we were all going to be friends if we were to be in her class. Of course, no one wanted to hear it. That’s when she taught us the song.”
“And what was this song?” Anne wanted to know already.
“Well, there were two verses. The first one was–
Love is not a feeling.
We love by faith.
We love because God loved us first.
We love because without His love, we are nothing.
And the second verse went-
Forgiveness is not a feeling.
We forgive by faith.
We forgive because God forgave us first.
We forgive because without His forgiveness, we are nothing.
“Catchy tune,” Sandy commented, tapping her fingers to the beat.
“She made us sing it every blessed morning before classes. I forgot all about it until one random morning, I woke up with the tune in my head and couldn’t get it out, Forgiveness is not a feeling. We forgive by faith…” Janet started humming the tune again.
“Actually, that was when my dad suddenly reappeared out of the blue…. asking to come home. And this song was in my head, taunting me. So I decided to check it out, if we’re to really forgive by faith. And it was true. And I also realised that the Bible never says we should forgive and forget.
“To forgive and forget is a God thing. My part is to forgive, and that’s a faith thing. Faith, because the old me doesn’t want to, but my new self wants to. So when I decided to forgive my dad by faith, God worked out that faith in me and then my feelings slowly followed, and what used to hurt so much, well, the pain became lesser and lesser until one day, I realised it was gone! I didn’t feel like crashing his stupid car just to feel better anymore.”
“Stupid car?”
“I’m still work in progress.” Janet rolled her eyes.
Sandy guffawed and raised her coffee cup. “I’ll drink to that!”
Anne wanted to get back to the point. “So the whole point is to focus on forgiving by faith… not forgetting what happened?”
Janet nodded. “Yes. It actually makes my life easier.”
Anne leaned back in the chair. It made sense. And to think she’d spent all these years thinking forgetting was part of the forgiveness deal! What she remembered was the Bible consistently linking forgiveness to Christ,… forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:32.
This threw a whole new light on tomorrow’s meeting with Charles.
“And did it work?” Esi asked, looking at Janet.
“Did what work?”
“The song. Did your primary school gangster classmates become friends?”
Janet laughed. “Well, I don’t know if it was the song but, in a few weeks, we couldn’t even remember why we’d been so angry at each other. There was an agreement for each group to stay in their lane…whatever that meant…”
“The silly things we used to care about…” Esi mused.
Sandy looked at Anne. “But Annie girl, why did you ask? What’s all this about forgiving and forgetting?”
Anne took a deep breath. “Charles called. Yesterday.”
The girls looked at each other. Uh oh.
What was with these runaway men coming back?
Forgiveness is not a feeling.
Under the amazing covenant of grace, we don’t forgive to be forgiven. We forgive because we’ve already been forgiven.
…bearing with one another, forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. Colossians 3:13
To forget is God’s part, not yours.
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. Hebrews 8:12
And you’ve not been asked to carry the world on your shoulders and act all nice and sanctimonious and smiley when inside, you’re raging. The beauty of the new covenant is that you can be a hundred per cent honest with the Lord. It’s as if He’s saying to you, I know you’re hurting, but trust Me and let it go. You don’t have to even feel like it, just forgive because you know how much I love you. I’ll take care of the rest.
We forgive because God forgave us first.
And we know how loved we are. Because of that, forgiving doesn’t take away from us.
Love is tied up with forgiveness.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4: 10
You probably have a right to be angry. Mad. Upset at something or someone. But when you think of how much more God had a right to be angry at us but loved you all the same, honestly, then what is the point of holding on to so much pain?
Pain that hurts you instead of the person you’re angry at.
Do you believe your heavenly Father loves you and can turn the messiest and most painful experiences and betrayals in your favour? Do you trust the Lord to leave it in His hands?
And let’s not forget that’s also the crux of the cross. He took your place, the place of the betrayed, the accused, the rejected, the unloved, so you could be the forgiven, the accepted, the loved. He’s not asking you to carry a cross.
He’s just saying, don’t carry what I’ve already carried. Let me take care of that for you.
That is how forgiveness by faith works. Would you like to give it a try?
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Stay high on grace my friend!
HIGH ON GRACE 