Forgiving: An Act of Surrender

I’ve been revisiting Joseph’s story, through it learning more about forgiveness. Forgiving is one of those things we always have to be doing because, well, we live among other people and in living among them, we get hurt by their words and actions. Sometimes we are the ones doing the hurting. In most cases, when we are the ones who’ve hurt another, we expect understanding but the same doesn’t usually apply when we are the ones hurt. Forgiveness is a lovely gift to receive but a costly gift to give.

Joseph was the one hurt, hurt in the worst way because the course of his life was altered by what was done to him. It also didn’t help that he was hurt this way by those closest to him, his own flesh and blood. That’s when it really cuts deep, when the pain is inflicted by those who were supposed to love and protect you. 

“And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it. Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am Joseph! Is my father still living?’ But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come close to me.’ When they had done so, he said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.” Genesis 45:2-5

What caught my attention is that from being thrown in a pit with hanging death threats, to being dragged to Egypt into slavery and then jailed for a crime that he didn’t commit, Joseph didn’t once cry. I don’t know how he did it, I almost cried today because I felt overwhelmed by an assignment. We don’t have one record of his tear, not until he reencountered his brothers years later. Why cry now? Because forgiving them proved more painful than all the hell that they had put him through.

At times, what keeps us from forgiving is expecting forgiving to be easy or to feel right. We delay, waiting for it to be easy. You’ll wait forever because forgiving hurts, a lot.  Why? Because forgiving means letting go. You would think letting go would feel good, but not in this case because, as someone once said, pain demands to be felt. Pain wants to be noticed and given attention, it wants to introduce you to its cousin, Self-pity, and if you get along well with him, Misery will join the party, then you are well on your to meet mean old Bitterness.

“When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, ‘What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrong we did to him?’…But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.’ And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.” Genesis 50:15,19-21 

Joseph was in a position of power, he had advantage, which meant he could have inflicted pain on his brothers. If not jail or death, he could have let them starve to death since their provision was dependent on him. Forgiving is an act of surrender, it is giving up the fight, acknowledging that it’s not your fight to fight anyway. This is what Joseph meant when he said he wasn’t in God’s place since vengeance is God’s. We are not called to repay the evil people do to us with more evil, in fact, we are to repay it with good. Instead of getting back at them, Joseph took care of them. The reason we hold grudges is because we still hope to avenge ourselves. When we choose to forgive, we surrender this hope and desire for vengeance and leave it in God’s rightful hands.

Joseph left it in God’s hands, so much so that he didn’t want his brothers to continue living in guilt and distress because of what they had done to him. This was because he had a different perspective of what had happened. In everything, he saw God’s sovereignty, and how God was always in control, and that despite how things went, God worked them together for his good. It’s easier to forgive when you understand that no harm done against you can surpass God abilities nor alter His plan for your life. We tend to stay in misery because we give our pain and the people who’ve hurt us too much credit. They are not greater than God and his ability to heal us, they do not have the ability to detour our lives so much so God cannot get us back on track.

We rot in unforgiveness because we make it about others. Have you not noticed how some people are so unaffected by the fact that we have never forgiven them? That’s because unforgiveness harms the one who harbours it. When I forgive, I embrace the truth that the God who calls me to let go is greater than any pain that I’ve endured, and that he is capable enough to heal me from every wound that has been inflicted on me.

“Do not say, ‘I’ll pay you back for this wrong!’ Wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you.” Proverbs 20:22