The Power of Forgiveness

About five years ago I helped to arrange a couple of speaking engagements for a Vietnamese lady by the name of Kim Phuc. Kim is famous for a photo that was snapped of her which became an icon and earned a Pulitzer Prize. In the photo (shown below), 9 year old Kim is seen running from her village with others, her clothing having been burned off by napalm, as they had been mistakenly attacked as enemy soldiers.

Kim spent 14 months in hospital and had 17 surgical procedures. She was then used as a propaganda tool by the Communist North Vietnamese government. After being given leave to study in Cuba, Kim was married and, on their honeymoon, got off a plane in Gander, Newfoundland at a refueling stop and asked for political asylum in Canada. She has since moved to Toronto, and now speaks on behalf of child victims of war, having started the Kim Phuc Foundation International.  

The reason I thought of Kim was that I was preparing to write on the subject of forgiveness. I remembered her powerful words on the subject as she spoke at our local High School and to our church. She is one who can speak with authority on the subject, having endured horrible suffering as a victim of war. In 1996, Kim publicly forgave an American pilot who believed that he was the one who had dropped the bomb on her village.

The subject of forgiveness is a touchy one. Many people feel that forgiving someone is tantamount to letting them get away with what they've done. But what they don't understand is that not forgiving actually costs the victim more. As Kim said, "The anger inside me was like a hatred as high as a mountain. I hated my life. I hated all people who were normal because I was not normal. I really wanted to die many times." I've met many who have shared the same kind of sentiment. 


In 1982, Kim came to faith in Jesus Christ and, with that, found the capacity to forgive. She said, "God helped me to learn to forgive - the most difficult of all lessons. It didn't happen in a day and it wasn't easy. But I finally got it. Forgiveness made me free from hatred. I still have many scars on my body and severe pain most days but my heart is cleansed." 

Most people would not have the depth of emotion Kim experienced and perhaps wouldn't describe their feelings as hatred, yet the power of those emotions is real nonetheless. It keeps them from living life to the fullest; they avoid people and places; relationships are hindered and damage is done to the soul. What should we do when we find ourselves trapped by unforgiveness? Here are some keys.

Start at the Cross
The cross of Jesus Christ is the greatest symbol and example of forgiveness that we have been given. It was from the cross that Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He prayed this for the soldiers who mercilessly tortured him. In the cross, we find forgiveness and mercy offered to all of us. Kim spoke of the power of this reality in her own life. She could forgive because she had been forgiven. 

Choose to Forgive
Forgiveness, ultimately, is a choice. It's a decision to no longer hold something over someone's head. It releases the forgiver to move forward with their life and let go of the past. Choosing not to forgive locks us in time at the place where we were hurt. It continues that person's power over us. As someone said, "not forgiving is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."   

Forgiving Doesn't Require Forgetting    
We are human, and we don't forget much, except maybe where we put the car keys. What we can do is refuse to let the memory rule our lives. We choose to walk in a new reality.

Forgiving Allows Healing
Every one of us who has lived long enough has been hurt by someone in our lives. For many, those wounds are sensitive and anyone who brushes against them emotionally may pay the price - including friends and family. But when we choose to forgive, the power of that event is broken and healing can begin. It may take time, but good can actually come from the bad events in our lives. I'll give the final word to Kim. “Having known war, I now know the value of peace. Having lived with pain, I know the value of love. Having lost everything, I now know the value of cherishing everything I have that’s important and having known hatred, I now know the value and the power of faith and forgiveness.” 

Related Articles: 
Get Over It
Are You a People Person?
Book Review: "It Came From Within!"
Repacking the baggage of our lives
Looking Back



 

The Problem of Pain

I'm going to be speaking on this subject shortly so I thought I'd share a few thoughts in advance. This problem seems to be a "sticking point" for many people in their search for God. The question is often phrased something like this: "If God is so good, why did this happen to me?" It was apparently the question of pain that kept Albert Einstein from believing in the God of Christianity. Is there a good answer?

There's not an easy answer, but let's explore it for a minute. In the first place, let's try to put some boxes around the discussion. When we think of pain, we're not talking about inconvenience; we're speaking of the real bad stuff, like cancer, and child abuse, and mass murder. If there is a God, and if He is all-powerful, why would He allow cancer to invade someone's body; why would He allow a sexual predator to defile a child; why would He allow a serial killer to go on a rampage. The argument of some would be that either God is not good (that He is in fact, evil), or that He is not all-powerful, or that He doesn't exist.

What answers does the Bible give?

It begins with the creation story, which was concluded with God's pronouncement that everything He made was "very good." His final act of creation was humanity, into whom He breathed "the breath of life, and man became a living soul." He created us in His own image, which infers a number of things. One of the characteristics of humans is that we were created with a will. We have been described as "free moral agents." What this means is that, while we were created to love God, we can choose not to; while we were created for relationship with God, we can choose to reject Him.

This is, in fact, what the Bible teaches us occurred with our original parents. Rather than remain in relationship with God they chose to rebel against His authority. The consequences of that action had been spelled out in advance: death and decay entered the world. The fallen angel, Lucifer, usurped man's position and claimed a place of power in the world. Jesus called him "the prince of this world." Succeeding generations would no longer be born into innocence, but inherited a "sin nature" from our first parents.

The world quickly changed, violence has been a part of human civilization ever since. Sin has been a universal bane on our existence. The Biblical teaching is that the origin of sin, pain and death was man's first disobedience. Which leads to the second question: why hasn't God dealt with it?

What this suggestion usually implies is that God somehow separate the good people from the bad people. But, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn said in ‘One word of truth’, his Nobel address: “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart.”

So God chose, rather, the more difficult task of redemption. This culminated in the death of Jesus Christ - God in the flesh - as a sacrifice for our sin. Christ's death on the cross was an identification with the sin of man. Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2:24: "Christ carried our sins in his body on the cross so that freed from our sins, we could live a life that has God's approval. His wounds have healed you." (GWT)

Further, God promises that ultimately He will judge evil and will renew this world. So, why does He wait? Again in 2 Peter 3:9 it says: "The Lord is not slow in keeping his word, as he seems to some, but he is waiting in mercy for you, not desiring the destruction of any, but that all may be turned from their evil ways."

So, according to the Bible, God's answer to the suffering brought into the world was to enter into it with us and bear the full weight of it Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ. He suffers with the innocent, and He also suffers for the guilty. His desire is reconciliation with the fallen race of man.

Those who respond to His invitation are also invited to become a part of this reclamation project. In return, we receive His promise given in Romans 8:28: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." The gist of this is that God promises to use even the difficult times of our lives to bring about some good - if we entrust it to Him.

As an example, many of you will remember the famous photograph of the little 10 year old girl fleeing her village in Vietnam which had just been napalmed. Her clothes had been torn off in an effort to stop the burning, yet the chemical fire continued to burn through her skin. This iconic photo was one of the most-recognized of the 20th century. Her name was Kim Phuc, and she is now in her early 40's, and living in Canada.

She is now a Christian, a wife, and a mother and has used her story to make a positive difference in the world. While that event in 1972 was unbelievably painful and was followed by abuse at the hands of the communists, the road is still leading many to find purpose and hope in suffering.

While this is obviously an extreme situation, I've heard many similar stories with similar results. We live in a fallen world - that's a fact. We will experience pain in our lives - also a fact. But Jesus said in John 16:33 "...In the world you will have trouble: but take heart! I have overcome the world." (BBE) We'll likely deal with this subject again later - I'd love your comments.