An Act of the Will

Dannah Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has some wise counsel for anyone who’s ever struggled to forgive.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: One of the things that has helped me the most is to realize that forgiveness is not a feeling. Forgiveness is not emotion. Forgiveness, ultimately, is a choice. It’s an act of my will.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Forgiveness, for July 11, 2022. I’m Dannah Gresh.

We’ve mentioned before that we’re calling June, July, and August of this year the “Summer of Surrender.” We’re hoping you’ll be intentional and proactive when it comes to your spiritual walk. Now, we know we have international listeners, and you may live in a part of the world where it’s the colder season. You can think of these months as your “Winter of Surrender.”

One area that can be difficult to surrender to God is the whole idea of forgiving someone who’s hurt us. So last Friday and this week, we’re taking a short break from our series in the Old Testament book of Habakkuk to focus on forgiveness. 

And let me say at the outset, in some cases, the thought of forgiving someone who’s hurt you might bring out a wide range of emotions up  inside you. It could be tempting to just not listen. If that’s true of you, can I ask you this? Why don’t you listen to this week-long series on forgiveness before you jump to conclusions? Because Nancy’s going to help us understand forgiveness from the perspective of the Bible. You might be surprised at what God’s Word says—and doesn’t say—about the subject. So hear us out. Okay? 

Great! Let’s dive in. Here’s our host, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy: I will never forget the day, several years ago, when I was leading a women's conference. At one point, we opened up the microphone for some testimonies. A woman came to the mic and in front of the whole audience of women, proceeded to tell the story that fourteen years earlier, her adult daughter had been stalked and then viciously murdered by a man that she did not know. Then, the women at the microphone, the mother of this daughter, turned to me in front of all these women and with deep anguish and emotions and said, "I have hated this man for fourteen  years. How can I forgive? How can I forgive?"

Now, those of you who are mothers, and even those who are not, can only begin to imagine something of the anguish and deep heartache that this mother had experienced. Your experience may have been something comparable or it may have been something that would not compare; but to you, it is serious. It has been a deep pain, a wound of your past, or maybe even something that you are walking through at this very moment.

I think of the woman who came to me with a very different set of circumstances, but it relates to this whole area of hurt. She said, "I feel like a robot Christian. I have shut God out of my life, and I am just going through the motions because of all the hurts."

This whole issue of pain and hurt and woundedness is one that concerns us all. It is one we all have experienced. We all have a story. If it is not our own deep pain and wounds, we have people close to us that we love and we want to help and encourage so they will know how to walk through the hurts and pains in life.

I thing we have to start out by saying, "The fact is, everyone will get hurt. It cannot be avoided. We will be wronged."

You say, "That does not sound very encouraging." But, we need to remember that it is something that we cannot escape. There is going to be pain in this world. It is a fallen world; it is a sinful world. Whether you are old or young or whatever your circumstances are in life, there is going to be hurt. There are going to be people who wrong you, people who treat you in ways that they should not.

You may have been hurt by a trusted friend who lied to you or lied about you to someone else. You may have been hurt by a teacher or professor in college or even when you were younger, a teacher embarrassed you in front of a whole classroom. It still just lodges in your heart and in your mind today when we talk about hurt.

You may have been hurt by someone who cheated you or who stole from you or from your family. Perhaps, it was by a parent who rejected you, one who did not know how to express love and expressed just the opposite of love. Or maybe your hurt comes from a child who has rebelled and has embarrassed you and your family name.

It may be because of something someone else did to one of your children. I know as a mother, it is easier to take someone hurting you than it is for you to take someone hurting one of your children. I see some heads nodding. There's that pain you feel pain when someone wrongs your children.

You may have been hurt by an employer who wronged you or wronged your mate. Maybe it was from a spiritual leader that you trusted and that person turned out not to be the real thing. It may have come from the other direction. A woman came to me a week or so ago and she said, "How do you forgive a whole church?"

She is a pastor's daughter. She said, "Last year the church threw out my father as the pastor. They sinned against him. They wronged him. They are still talking about him, and there are still broken relationships as a result." She has been hurt.

There are women in this room who have been hurt by a father or a relative who has stolen your moral innocence and who used you sexually. There are women in this room who went to the altar with stars in their eyes to hear a man promise to love you "till death do you part." That dream has turned into a nightmare; and it has ended up in disappointment, loss, and rejection. There are hurts and wounds in life.

I know some of the things I just named are huge issues, and some of them you do not want to say in the same paragraph. When it happens to you, at that moment, and sometimes as you remember back on that hurt or that wound or that pain, the pain can be as fresh today in some ways as perhaps it was twenty, thirty or more years ago.

The fact is, we will get hurt; we will be offended. We are a generation of wounded people today. As I talk with women and look into their eyes, I see the scars, the wounds, and the impressions left on their faces by deep hurt and pain.

In fact, one of the things I hear more and more often from women in recent years is the statement, "I'm angry." Then they talk about who they are angry with. "I am angry at my husband; I am angry at my parents; I am angry at my children; I am angry at my pastor."

I do not remember hearing this years ago as often as I am hearing it today. But I hear, "I am really angry at God." Ultimately, this woundedness and this bitterness, if not dealt with in God's way, will turn into anger against God.

After all, if He is supposed to be all powerful, He could have stopped this. He did not; why did He not? I cannot trust a God, many women think, who would let this happen in my life.

There are so many women with wounded spirits, who are harboring deep hurts. When they harbor these hurts in their hearts and do not deal with them God's way, they become smoldering bitterness, which turns to anger, hatred, and revenge in some cases and even violence.

That is what we are seeing in our schools today. Some of you are afraid to send your children off to school because of violence.

You have heard it said, "The most dangerous animal in the forest is the one that has been wounded."

Not to make excuses for any of our violent ways; but the fact is, so many of us, one generation after another, have responded to hurts and wounds by turning around and wounding and hurting others.

Perhaps, you have even experienced it as a mother, where you have felt wounded from your childhood. Then, you found yourself turning around and saying things to your own children that you never thought you would say, things that you knew would hurt their spirits. It may be that you never dealt with the wounds of your past God's way.

As we move into this series on the whole issue of forgiveness and dealing with the wounds and hurts of our past, I want to start by saying that not only is it inevitable that we will get hurt; we are going to have to deal with it. But here is another basic principle that I think is helpful: the outcome of our lives—the way we turn out and who we are—is not determined by what happens to us.

Many times we think we are simply the way that we are. We have certain responses that we do. We parent our children the way we do because of something that happened to us, because of the way we were parented, or because of the way someone else dealt with us. "I am just that way because of this aspect of my past."

But the fact is that the outcome of our lives and who we are is not determined by what happens to us. What has happened to us certainly has an effect upon us; it influences us. But, it cannot control who we become. The fact is, who we are and the outcome of our lives is determined by how we respond to what happens to us.

 

You may be thinking, That is not very encouraging; that is not very good news, because now you tell me I am responsible. I thought that if at least I could think someone else was responsible, maybe this would not hurt so badly. But now you are saying that it is my fault.

Well here is why that is good news: If the outcome of my life is determined by things over which I have no control—the way people have treated me, have with dealt me, or things that have been done to me—then, I am a hopeless victim. There is no hope for me. I have to be the way that I am if I have no control over the outcome of my life.

But realize that we, by God's grace and as children of God, can choose, by the power of God's Spirit, how we respond to what happens to us, there is hope in that. Because God will give us grace to choose to respond in ways that are pleasing to Him and that will set us free from the bondage of our past. Every time you and I are wronged, we choose how we are going to respond to that offense.

There are essentially two ways of responding to hurt. The first way is how most people respond, and that is they become a "debt collector." What do they do? They hold the offender hostage.

They say, "You wounded me. I am not going to let you go until you acknowledge how deeply you have hurt me." They put their offenders in a debtor's prison. I should not really say "they"; I should say, "we," because we have all responded this way to hurt at times.

When we become debt collectors, ultimately that pathway leads to resentment and bitterness. It is the pathway of retaliation; I will get even. We may not do it overtly. But we are withholding love and holding that anger and bitterness in our hearts. We are going to see that when we become debt collectors, we actually end up putting ourselves in prison.

There is an alternate way, God's way. It is a pathway of choosing forgiveness. Essentially, this is a pathway of releasing our offenders from prison, letting them go, setting them free.

I want to stress that we let them go not because they necessarily deserve it, not because they have necessarily come back and said, "I realized I was wrong. Will you forgive me?" They may never realize that. But we release them, not because they deserve it but because of God's incredible grace.

God's grace is undeserved. And as we have received God's grace, we extend His mercy and grace to others. This is the pathway not of retaliation but of reconciliation. We choose which pathway we will take.

I remember the day at the close of a conference where I had been speaking all day where a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law came down to speak to me. The daughter-in-law was great with child. She looked close to nine months pregnant. She and the mother-in-law came to tell me their story.

The younger woman had been married to the older woman's son for about four years. Through all of the time of the younger couple developing their relationship and up to this very day, that mother-in-law and daughter-in-law had never gotten along very well with each other. They had really disliked each other intensely. There had been walls and barriers and distance between them. I don't know that they really knew what it was all about, what all the reasons were for their anger.

You see, when you start to see someone through eyes of hurt, you finally get to the place where everything they do bothers you.

That day God had worked in each of their hearts. They had come separate from each other to the conference. In fact, the older woman was on the committee that brought the conference to the area and had not invited her daughter-in-law. She said, "I knew if I invited her, she wouldn't come."

But they both did come and God found them there in that auditorium sitting in different places in that auditorium. And during the course of that afternoon as we talked about this subject of forgiveness, I don't know who it was who made the first move, but I know that those two women ended up together in the prayer room in each other's arms seeking one another's forgiveness for the hurts, the wounds, the wrongs and then extending, in the name of Jesus, forgiveness to each other.

I followed up a little bit later and talked with the mother-in-law. And then I received a letter from the daughter-in-law and found out that during those next weeks they began the process of repairing the damage that had been done by those years of bitterness and anger and even began to meet regularly to pray with each other and to study the Word together.

Now their problems didn't all go away. They still had issues. There was a lot of build up there, but that process of healing began with a point of forgiveness.

Now I think that we need to understand several things about forgiveness, and one of the things that has helped me the most is to realize that forgiveness is not a feeling. Forgiveness is not emotion. Forgiveness ultimately is a choice. It's an act of my will.

 

It's not that I can't forgive. Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that I won't choose to forgive. You see, God's Word, and we all know this, clearly commands us that we must forgive. And when God gives us the command, if we are His children and we have his Holy Spirit living inside of us, He will give us the power, the ability to do whatever He commands.

Philippians 2:13 tells us, "It is God, who is at work within you, both to will," that is to desire, "and to choose to do of God's good pleasure." Now I know these verses are very familiar to most of us in this room. But I think it's important that we repeat some of these familiar truths and Scriptures over again to remind us (in these basic issues of forgiveness) what God's Word says.

For example, we go to Mark chapter 11, and we hear Jesus saying, "When you stand praying . . ." when you go to church, when you're in a prayer meeting, when you're having your quiet time ". . . if you hold anything against anyone . . ." Now before I finish the verse, let me just say, would you agree that that pretty much covers the bases? "If you hold anything against anyone," and that's really a blanket statement Jesus is making. It covers every possible offense that I might be holding in my heart.

He's saying, "When you come to talk to your heavenly Father, if you hold anything against anyone, before you keep praying, forgive that person. Forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins." We'll talk in another session about how our ability to experience God's love and forgiveness is directly related to our willingness to extend forgiveness to others.

I want to read a couple of other verses that make this same point. You're familiar with that passage in Ephesians chapter 4 that says, "Let all bitterness," all bitterness, now many of us will deal with most of the bitterness. But we just let this little root, this little seed of bitterness find a lodging place in our hearts. And I want to say that the little seed of bitterness that you let stay in your heart may end up being your undoing.

And so that's why the apostle Paul says, "Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you"( Eph. 4:32).

There is a similar passage in Colossians chapter 3, where Paul says, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved . . ." let me just say here that if you're not a child of God, then you will not have the capacity to truly forgive.

He's speaking here to those who are God's chosen people, those who are holy before Him. And what does He say? "Clothe yourselves with compassion." Now I know everyone in this room got dressed this morning. But did you clothe yourself with compassion? Did you think to put on love? He says, "clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience" (Col. 3:12). That's quite a list, isn't it?

When you get dressed in the morning, do you think about putting on those qualities? And let me say that within our homes and our work places, and our relationships, it would be good periodically to ask ourselves, "How are we doing in these areas? Have we put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience?" Can you imagine how the spirit of our homes, our churches, our workplaces would be different if we women would just clothe ourselves with those characteristics?

Well it goes on to say, we're in Colossians chapter 3:13, "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another." And then this is the standard, "Forgive as the Lord forgave you." That's quite a bar he's raised, isn't it? How are we to forgive? As God forgave us.

Well, that begs this question, "How has God forgiven us? How did God forgive us for killing his only Son?" Well, when we go back to Psalm 103, we're given a glimpse as in many other places in Scripture, where we're told that the Lord has not dealt with us after our sins. He's not rewarded us according to our iniquities. "For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us" (Ps. 103:11–12).

So how has God forgiven us? Well, we see that His forgiveness is complete. It's permanent. It's unconditional. And this is what I love about it. It's undeserved. It's absolutely undeserved. We can't earn it, we can't work for it, we can't perform harder to get it. His forgiveness is all of grace. So how are we to love others? How are we to forgive others when they sin against us? Our forgiveness is to be complete. It's to be permanent. It's to be unconditional. And it's to be given even when it's not deserved.

Here's the wonderful thing about the grace of God, and that is that we can actually forgive others with the same grace that we have received from God. I love that about His grace. He pours into our lives, He lavishes upon us abundant, exceeding riches of His grace. He pours them into us. And then when He asks us to extend grace and mercy and forgiveness to others, where do we get the grace? From God. We don't have it in ourselves. But God has given His grace to us so that we can extend to others the same mercy and grace that we have received from Him.

Forgiveness is a choice, it's an act of my will. It's a response to God's command that says, "Yes, Lord, though I've been hurt deeply, yet by Your grace, I choose the pathway of forgiveness."

Dannah: That’s our host, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, encouraging us to make that choice to forgive, not because those who hurt us deserve it, but because of the grace God has given us.

Nancy, it’s only the first day of the series, and already you’ve given us some important things to chew on. Thank you!

Nancy: Thank you, Dannah. I don't know that there is any subject more important for us to grapple with in these days where there is so much hurt, so much anger, so much woundedness, than to deal with this issue of how we receive God's forgiveness and how we extend that forgiveness to others. It's a huge subject. It's a hard subject. It's going to touch some soft and maybe painful points in our own hearts as we walk through this.

But I want to say, I know, having seen so many people and having experienced myself over the year, walking out in freedom, that it's going to be worth it. So hang in there with us. Ask the Lord to help you make personal what we are going to talk about over these days.

Dannah: I'm grappling with some issues of forgiveness in my own life right now, so it's very timely. I'm thinking as you were saying that that it is timely for a bunch of us. There's always someone we need to forgive or receive forgiveness from.

I want to circle back around to what you started with today because it is a really tough subject: that mother standing there, saying, “I hate the man who killed my daughter. How can I forgive him?” How do you even respond to a question like that? 

Nancy: Well, I don't think I'll ever forget that moment, even though it was a number of years ago. Because you have this full conference here and this woman standing up in front of the whole audience. Of course, that wasn't the moment to talk with the woman in a way that I'd like to. But what I'd love to have a chance to do in that situation is to sit down with that precious woman, to hold her, to love on her, to weep with her, to express to her that God grieves with her in this horrific loss, and that He has genuine compassion for her.

I think understanding and listening goes a long way to opening a woman’s heart to understanding the truth. When the time is right and you have the relationship established, try to point someone back to the Word of God, because that's how hurt turns to hope. It's through the Scripture. When we say, "Release bitterness. Let it go. Don't harbor it." We are not saying that you excuse what the other person has done. We are not saying that it doesn't matter.

These are some of the things we'll be talking about over the next days of this series on forgiveness. Ultimately we are going to see, the goal is to turn over that right we want to have to punish the person who hurt us, we are going to turn that right over to the Lord and the judicial system, which God has ordained to deal with evildoers

Whether it is that woman or someone who's listening right now . . .  They've had this massive hurt or wound. It may go back years. It may be still going on. You need a godly, wise counselor or mentor to come alongside, pray with you, open God's Word with you, and lovingly help you walk through that process.

It's not like click your fingers and "you're forgiven" and it is done. Hurt doesn't go away in that way. But we can turn from hurt to hope. Even colossal hurts can be turned to hope through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Dannah: Good words, my friend. We’ll be talking more about forgiveness as the series continues all this week.

If this is something you’d like to look into further, you’ll want to get a copy of Nancy’s book Choosing Forgiveness: Moving from Hurt to Hope. This month it’s our thank-you gift to you for your donation of any size to help support Revive Our Hearts. If you’re a member of the Monthly Partner Team, you can request your copy through the online portal that we’ve set up just for our partners, and we’ll send it to you. While I have your ear, I want to say, "Thank you so much for making it possible for us to do what we do every day—bringing hope to hurting hearts."

If you’re not a monthly partner, you can make a donation and request Choosing Forgiveness, just head over to ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. 

Nancy: Tomorrow we’ll learn why unforgiveness is like a prison. And, we’ll look at who’s being kept in that prison cell, because it’s more than one person. I hope you’ll join us for that.

Dannah: I certainly will, Nancy.

You ended that message we just heard today with prayer, and it was powerful. So let's listen in as Nancy prays us out today.

Nancy: Father, we all acknowledge that we have had hurts and wounds in our past. Some of us in this room are living through some painful circumstances right now in our lives. There are people who are offending us, who are sinning against us. I pray that You would teach us how to forgive. And set us free, Lord, even as we set our debtors free. May we not rely on our feelings, not wait until we feel like forgiving, but be willing to say, “Yes, Lord, I will choose, by Your grace, to extend forgiveness to those who have wronged me, those who have sinned against me.” Thank You, Lord, for Your incredible grace poured out into our lives. And may we forgive others as You have forgiven us. We pray in Jesus’s name, amen.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling you to choose forgiveness and find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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