Unforgiveness: The Punisher and The Paralytic

Unforgiveness: The Punisher and The Paralytic

    

            A few years ago I took several trips to Virginia for some on-campus intensive classes for my major in Professional Counseling. I understand now why they call them intensives; this was an understatement. One of the classes was on group therapy, and my peers and I were the pseudo clients and therapists in our class exercises. As one of the class exercises got underway, initially, I thought this would be more like drama; nothing too serious would come out of it. To set the stage, Professor Joy asked for a volunteer to present their family system and dynamics by assigning each student a role who would represent each person in the family.

            A young lady, who we will call Trish, came forward without hesitation, assigned roles and presented an ongoing issue in her family. Professor Joy also asked Trish to assign common responses to each family member represented in response to the ongoing issue for the content in discussion. I thought I would just be able to sit back and observe since I was not assigned a role…until…Professor Joy asked Trish, “Don’t you have a relationship with God?” to which Trish responded, “Yes.” Professor Joy asked, “Do you mind if Valerie represented the role of God?” to which Trish responded, “Not at all. She sure can.” Reluctantly, I stepped into this role. It was terrifying. I didn’t think I could do God any justice. I thought back on those times where I thought I was god in certain circumstances, “fixing” my own issues, only to be humbled in the process and reminded that I was not God. If it was God’s purpose to remind me of that I was at a place in my life where I did not need that lesson again.

            I knew coming into this role that it was not by chance that I was asked to do this, so I made every effort to guard my heart. As the group exercise got underway I was amazed at the therapeutic results of Trish’s dialogue and interaction with her pseudo-family. When Trish assigned me God’s response to her situation, when the time came, I made sure I said it in the most heartfelt way…”I Am with you and will comfort you always. You are my daughter.” I kept it brief; I made eye contact; I just cared for her. That’s what the Spirit guided me to do since I was struggling with some skepticism of how effective this exercise could be. I thought, “Whew! I did it.” But, something else was brewing that almost swept me off my feet.

            After the exercise, one-by-one we all detached from our role, respectively, before moving into a class discussion about our personal and professional experience. For example, “Hi Trish. My name is Valerie, and I am not God!” During our discussion Trish talked about her wonderful experience, but unbeknownst to anyone a storm was brewing. As Professor Joy made her way around the circle, out of somewhere, Bobby says, “I just wanted to punch God in the face.” Apparently, I did not guard my heart well, as I was triggered. I was stunned speechless. After class was over, Karen, one of my classmates who was riding with me that day went back to our hotel and sat in the parking lot for 3 hours trying to make sense of what just happened. I didn’t realize it affected her too. I was thankful that I didn’t feel alone in this. While I felt justified to be angry I was still very unsettled. I was on a mission to find out why I was triggered. How did I end up taking this personally?

            Then, late in the night God revealed to me what it was…it was my past. As a child I always struggled with the neglect and abandonment from my parents, and one of the Scriptures that I clung to was Psalm 27:10-11, “When my mother and father forsake me the Lord will take me up and lead me in a clear path.” Over the years I have come to embrace God as my mother and my father, and in Him I found a security that could not be threatened. Do you remember a time in your school years where someone talked about your mother or father, and how that represented fighting words? The offender was dared to meet after school, at 3 o’clock, where it was sure to go down. Well, this was the battle in my mind, ready to defend God who did not need to be defended. This was lesson one: This offense was not against me but against God. Lesson two was the most profound.

The Punisher

            As I continue to struggle with resolving my anger in the night, God said, “I can’t get to Bobby.” I didn’t understand so I kept asking for clarity, and He would repeat this several times, “I can’t get to him.” I finally realized that I was in the way. My anger and resentment had become Bobby’s punishment. I had become the punisher. Bobby knew that I was angry the day I left class, and I could just see the guilt-ridden countenance on his face. In my mind, yes, he deserved to be weighed down with guilt. But, this is where most people get stuck in unforgiveness, ultimately becoming the offender rather than the offended. I had become like the prophet Jonah.

            Jonah refused – for a time – to deliver a message from God to Ninevah. He didn’t want to help these people who had been wicked and cruel to the people of Israel. He wanted them to suffer; besides, they deserved it. He knew that this message could spark a sense of urgency and cause them to repent, and as a result, God would be compassionate and seek to save them from their just punishment. Jonah would rather see them extinguished than saved. It is this thought process that threatens to turn our hearts cold and hard, not only affecting the people that hurt us but also each person we encounter. Reluctantly, Jonah accepted his mission, but his heart was certainly in a better position than it would have been had he continued to refuse.

            We often find ourselves in the place of the punisher because we have concluded, like Jonah, that God is too compassionate and too kind, that it is very well possible that He will be merciful and not hold our offenders fully accountable. So, we wrestle with God…He is saying, “Move. Let me deal with them.” but we say, “No. You, God, are going to love them to the point that they just might forget what they have done.”

            The next day in class Professor Joy noticed that I had checked out. Forget answering questions or participating; just let me get back to Arizona because I refuse to “move”. I was stuck. I couldn’t run to righteous indignation but I also could not “move”, but I felt a sense of urgency to resolve this. I just didn’t know how. Professor Joy pulled me aside in the first few minutes of class, having already pieced together what contributed to my disengagement, she asked about how I was affected. She then suggested that this issue be presented in a group therapy exercise. What?!?! She followed up with Bobby to let him know about the group exercise. I could tell he was just as displeased as I was. Though displeased with having to present this issue in a group setting I knew that this was a divine avenue that would present me with the opportunity to move. God must have known that I could not do this on my own.

            Professor Joy presented a brief overview of the group’s exercise from the previous day to set the stage for the exercise. One of the most important rules was to only talk about what was happening for us, personally; we could not blame or attack someone else. Then, I was given the floor to speak. I had to choose…continue to be stubborn, angry and resentful, or release Bobby and allow God to deal with his heart. I decided to release him. I explained what triggered me and even expressed the hurt and anger that I still had towards him. To be able to verbalize that I wanted to “punch him in the face” was freeing, then I explained why I could not do that, giving him the message that I was given in prayer, “to move”. I explained that the only thing that my anger and resentment could do for him was cause him to be burdened with guilt and shame. God said, “Why would I burden him all the more? It would be too much for him.” I could only affect his conscious, but God could affect his heart. I sought to condemn him, but God was seeking to save him. I thought, “If I was truly on a mission to ‘win souls’ for the kingdom this was the greatest opportunity.”

            Bobby opened up about his struggles – the loss of pastoral leadership at his church, amongst other things. He did not feel God’s presence was with him always. He felt forsaken, and as a result he was very angry with God. It was not about me, per se. It was just easier for him to tell God what he has wanted to say as I stood in that role. I was an easier target to project his anger onto, Bobby explained, and he apologized for doing so.

            I was skeptical of this group therapy’s effectiveness in providing a therapeutic experience, but the irony is that it became the vehicle that enhanced my ability to be more self-aware, to forgive, and to promote emotional healing in myself and others.

            After returning home to Arizona I sent Bobby an email to capture how I empathized with him and how I was praying for him. I thought he would never email back but he did, 3 months later, explaining that he was able to seek the help he needed and had begun to make progress in his healing process. Sometimes I wonder, “What if I had not decided to move? Would I have become a stumbling block for him?”

What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees, Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either (Matt. 23:13, NLT)

The Paralytic

            Unforgiveness has its subtle way of monopolizing our future. Like Jonah, we allow the hurt that people have caused us to arrest our future, the plans that God has for us. Sometimes it is our inability to forgive ourselves. But, I have wondered if we purposely monopolize our own future by relying on something or someone to offend us so to give us a legitimate reason to abandon the calling that God has on our lives. For Jonah, it was the people of Ninevah; for Moses, it was his speech; and for Gideon, it was the weakness and inferiority of his clan. Each one of them called to a very hard thing that they felt they could not accomplish. I’m sure there are times that we are tempted to run away like Jonah. When people hurt me it was easier to become isolated, untrusting, and unloving…the call to love and engage people seemed too hard anyway, but now I had a good reason to not do these things. This was just the legitimate excuse I needed to run from ministry, counseling and massage therapy. When it seemed like the affect and impact of the offense wore off, guess what? You are right about it…I would look for a fight, to make sure I was the offended...all of this because I was terrified of heights, not just physical heights, but spiritual and career heights. I made sure I stayed paralyzed. This was easier than going through any of the processes of my professions.

            Remember the paralyzed man brought to Jesus by his four friends; they lowered him through a roof to be healed. In the past few years I have become increasingly curious about how Jesus chose to heal him, to forgive his sins rather than touch him to raise him up or to speak directly to his ailment as He had done with so many others. Why was Jesus addressing his sins? In various sermons that I have heard, the faith of the four friends is often emphasized. From another angle of this Scripture, it seems to me that Jesus was addressing sin due to the Shame and Guilt experienced that can make us feel paralyzed.

            When assessing the sins we have committed, Shame and Guilt grows from that and can lead us to a place of feeling worthless, hopeless, unwanted, etc. I believe that Jesus addressed the sins of this man to tap into and release him from the gripping struggles of these feelings. Metaphorically, many of us are that man. We may not be literally lying on a mat and unable to move but our lack of motivation to go after the things that God has called us to can result in spiritual paralysis.

Forgive

            Why is forgiveness important? How do you know when you have forgiven? It’s not tangible. We can choose to stay stuck by expending our energy on holding people hostage with our anger and resentment, or become dependent on people offending us for fear of embracing our calling, or continue to condemn ourselves for past sins and become paralyzed. But, the truth is this: anger and resentment hold us captive as we replay offenses over and over again in our mind – entrapped in negative thoughts -- and there is no productivity in dependency and self-condemning behavior. In all of this we become the offender rather than the offended.

            There is an unbearable expectation that we put on others when we are unable to forgive. We expect, subconsciously, that no one will offend or hurt us. I will confess that there was a time when I expected that people in authoritative roles, such as teachers, pastors/leaders, parents, religious people and mentors would not hurt me. I thought, “They should know better.” I left no room for their human flaws. The expectation of perfection was unrealistic. Leave room for people’s humanness. Release them from your laws of expectation.

            We all have belief systems influenced and shaped by our family, peers, religious affiliation and environment. We have come to some healthy and unhealthy conclusions about how a person should conduct himself or herself morally. When we try to force these ideologies on someone else that lives by different values or views unforgiveness starts to take root through anger and resentment when we feel our views are rejected. Accept other’s differences. Empathize.

            For example, Bobby is a pastor and I had reasoned in my mind that he should influence people to love God rather than punch God, but in Bobby’s humanness he struggled. He was damaged. After hearing about the difficult times he was having I was moved with compassion, remembered being in that same place years ago, and at times still get frustrated with God. Lowering my defenses allowed me to hear, understand and empathize with Bobby. I became more and more willing to move, no longer allowing my anger and resentment to be darts and used up energy. More times than not we will discover that people are not purposely malicious, but if they are establishing boundaries are in order.

            It is so important to remember that we are all created in the image of God, each bearing the likeness of His image – created for a specific function in the body of Christ. Just think about how your own body functions: skeletal, muscle, and blood. Imagine all the little cells that are responsible for each bodily function – that’s us – tons of little cells, and damaged daily (See 1 Cor. 12). But with the help from other cells, regeneration occurs to repair what has been damaged. In our emotional health, if we stunt the repair process it can be damaging to others and us. I remember when I was damaged to the point of isolation until I had this revelation about others being created in the image of God – having His likeness.

            The revelation was presented like this, “If you choose to remain isolated you will miss Me (God). To each person I have given a portion of Myself; coming to know them is discovering more of Me.” I didn’t want to miss God. I want the fullness of Him. So upon my conviction, I dared to trust, to love, to experience and be experienced, all on the hope and promise of experiencing more of God through people.

            Many of us will say with our mouths that we do not expect people to be perfect, but when hurtful circumstances arise there is a tendency to lean towards anger and resentment, which fuels unforgiveness, rather than applying social and communication skills to resolve issues. I want to encourage a new direction to lean – lean in the direction supplying life to damaged cells. Choose to be emotionally healthy:

·      Take responsibility in managing your own emotions

·      Take courage over your fears; Embrace life; Dare to be you

·      Establish appropriate boundaries with unsafe people

·      Develop in social and communication skills to resolve issues

·      Release people from the burden of expectations

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins (Matt. 6:14-15).