The Cost of Forgiveness

In a Twelve-Step recovery program, the Fourth Step involves a moral inventory: "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves." To make this moral inventory, it is recommended that the addict first compile a list of things and people he resents. This list of resentments is the key to uncovering assumptiona and wrong actions that lie in the addict's past (and continue to shape his present).

While identifying resentment will help the addict understand his own moral strengths and weaknesses, this list does not necessarily resolve the ongoing resentment that is polluting the addict's heart.

The problem is that while the addict has often (ok, always) contributed to the situations embodied in these resentments, he is not always the only one who has acted wrongly. Sometimes the resentments are due, at least in part, to the wrongs another has committed against the addict.

So what does the addict do with all of these resentments?

According to the Twelve-Steps he: (iv) makes an inventory, (v) admits to another his worngs, (vi) becomes ready to remove these wrongs, (vii) asks God to remove his wrongs, (viii) makes a list of people harmed by his wrongs, and (ix) makes direct amends to those he has wronged where possible.

But what does the addict do about the wrongs done to him? Here is where the resentment's balm steps in: FORGIVENESS.

To remove resentments, the addict must forgive.

But forgiveness does not come cheap. Forgiveness comes with a price tag. Is the addict willing to pay?



So what is this thing called forgiveness? Let's begin with some things that forgiveness is not:


FORGIVENESS IS NOT THE SAME THING AS EXCUSING.

People sometimes say that "to understand is to forgive all," but in a sense that's exactly wrong. Forgiveness is what is required precisiely when there is no good rationale to explain away why someone did what they did.


FORGIVENESS IS NOT FORGETTING.

Forgiveness is what's required precisely when we CAN'T forget.


FORGIVING IS NOT THE SAME THING AS RECONCILING

Forgiveness takes place in the heart of one human being. It can be granted even if the other person does not ask for it or deserve it.


So what IS forgiveness?

FORGIVENESS IS PAYING THE PRICE FOR THE OTHER'S WRONG.

Forgiveness comes with a price tag and it is expensive. Forgiveing is required when excusing or condoning or tolerating or accepting are not big enough to do the job. The first step in forgiveness is the decision not to try to inflict a reciprocal pain on everyone who has caused hurt.

When I forgive you, I give up the right to hurt you back.

I suspend the law of vengeance.
I give up the right to lecture you.
I give up the right to hold a grudge.
I give up the right to say, "I told you so."

FORGIVENESS HAS A PRICE AND THAT PRICE IS HIGH!

So why forgive?

Because the alternative is resentment and resentment has an even higher price tag.



Resentment means "to feel again." Resentment clings to the past, relives it over and over, picks each fresh scab so that the wound never heals.

Not to forgive imprisons me in the past and locks out all potential for change. I thus yield control to another, my enemy, and doom myself to suffer the consequences of the wrong.

As Lewis Smedes points out, "The first and often the only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgiveness. ... When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us."

Yes, forgiveness has a price, but so does resentment.

Don't forgive, and your anger will become your burden.

Don't forgive, and bit by bit all the joy will be choked out of you.

Don't forgive, and you will be unable to trust anybody ever again.

Don't forgive, and the bitterness will crowd the compassion out fo your heart slowly, utterly, forever.


So, addict, as you consider the cost of recovery make sure to include the cost of forgiveness.

And one more thing. What about the cost of forgiveness to Christ? "He who knew no sin became sin that we might be justified." Forgiveness obviously came with a large price tag for the creator. Why pay the price?

The question here is what is the price of not forgiving?

Is it possible that God considered the price of not forgiving (i.e., the loss of relationship with his creation, the loss of human kind, etc.) and felt that this price was too high? Yes, forgiveness has a price. But the price of not forgiving can be even higher.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

For God, the price of forgiveness was great: giving his one and only son, becoming sin. But because of his love for us, that price was less than the price of not forgiving.

So go ahead, addict. Count the cost and pay the price of forgiveness!