Forgiveness

Forgiveness

Monday, July 25, 2016
Jeff Lampl

“Joseph’s brothers made plans to kill him  . . . then sold him as a slave”

Genesis37:18, 28

"I am Joseph, your brother whom you sold into Egypt! But don’t be angry with yourselves

that you did this to me, for God did it! He sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives.

 “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good”

Genesis 45:4-5, 50:20

Getting from Genesis 37 to 50:20 didn’t happen by Magic.   It took the long painful process of forgiveness.   Forgiveness is what changes the past, changes the future, changes you, breaks the chains of bondage and transforms those whom you forgive before your very eyes (and not necessarily in the way that you might think)   (read more)

So, how did Joseph get from chapter 37 to chapter 50?  

Step one:  Joseph allowed himself to experience fully the first stage of forgiveness which is to face what happened, experience it, feel the pain, rage against it, feel the desire for vengeance, recognize that his brothers did not deserve to be forgiven.   Until we experience the fullness of the suffering of an injustice done, we are not ready to give forgiveness.   Stage one requires seeing the betrayal for the evil that it is.  Then and only then are we ready for stage two.

Step two is Spiritual Surgery.   It is painful but it is a chosen pain.   It is the pain of choosing to move ahead with forgiveness.  We do the surgery of cutting away the betrayal from the betrayer.  We separate out the person from the action.   Joseph was able (after gut wrenching agony, weeping and wrestling with the desire for revenge) to see his brothers as people apart from what they did to him.   In doing so his brothers were transformed in his mind from powerful people who ruined his life by what they did into weak people who needed him.   They needed him, not just for food, but also to set them free from what they did and free from living in the shadow of his condemnation.   Joseph now saw his brothers not a powerful, but as weak and needy.   He was now ready and able to meet their need.

Step three completes the miracle of forgiveness.   This step reflects the heart of God and every father yearns for it to happen in his children before he dies.  Jacob, Joseph’s father, saw the step happen for his children and it allowed him to die in peace.   What is this step?   It is the step that happened when Joseph was able to say to his siblings, “I want to be your brother again”.   It is the step of reconciliation.   This is God’s endgame for humanity, His whole family united together in Him.   This is the endgame of forgiveness.   In having completed all three steps in the forgiveness process, the miracle of life transformation takes place.   Forgivers become new creatures in Christ, person in whom God dwells, persons who are conduits of God’s grace and salvation to others.

I hope you take the next 8 minutes to watch this video of an horrendous injustice and how the cop and the victim worked through all three stages of forgiveness to become, through Christ, a microcosm, of God’s endgame for the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0A3sWCPpOE