Can you forgive someone who isn’t remorseful?  Yes, Yes You Can… in case you were wondering.

You probably know that in the Bible one of the biggest themes we see is Forgiveness. We read God telling us to forgive and so we automatically think, “well, God says so, so we must obey”. That’s not bad but in this line of thinking we completely miss the why of forgiveness. Why should we forgive? What for? What does forgiveness accomplish? Why is it important to God and why should it be important to us? Many times when we read the Bible we have this mindset that God is like a parent telling a child what to do and if they were to ask the question, “why?” God would say, “because I said so.” How many either grew up with parents that said that or were a parent that said that? Now I’m not here to discuss whether or not that is a good parenting tactic. I am here to discuss though that I don’t believe that is how God works and too often we think God thinks and acts like us - too often we make assumptions based on our own understanding.

When it comes to many things in the Bible and especially forgiveness, I think God wants us to ask “why?” and all the other questions I laid out. The point is not to do it because God said so. The point is relationship. The point is understanding what God is asking us to do, why God is asking us to, and what does that tell us about who God is and who we are. The why matters. The why can help you when you get stuck. So many questions arise from our faith when we feel stuck because we never took the time to actually learn about and understand God - we just obeyed like soldiers to a sergeant. But if you understand, then you can confidently make choices you believe are in line with God’s teachings and your faith becomes a little more manageable.

So a question I hear a lot is, “How do you forgive someone who is not remorseful?.” This is a great question because unfortunately this is the case sometimes. If we begin to answer the why of forgiveness we start to learn that a big aspect of forgiveness besides reconciliation is becoming right with one’s own self. Forgiving someone else, even if they aren’t asking for it or don’t want it, still has the power to free yourself from feelings of shame, guilt, betrayal, anger, resentment, etc. When someone wrongs you, it affects you; and those effects, if not dealt with well, can take a hold on you and start to control you. So even if someone doesn’t want to reconcile with you or even believe they have hurt you, through forgiveness you still have the ability to heal and move on and not let that incident carry so much weight in your life.

When you read about forgiveness in the stories of the Bible, don’t be scared to take some liberty in the interpretation, imagine yourself as one of the characters - think about how those people must have been feeling and how the hurt was affecting them. Feel free to play around with it in a way that makes sense for human relationships. The Bible is not some archaic document that is so out of touch we have no use for it - just the opposite. The Living Word can help us discern how the written word continues to give us wisdom and guidance no matter the culture or society.