Forgiving yourself to Peace
It was after the funeral of a mutual acquaintance that a colleague from years past greeted me with a tearful embrace. The joy of our reunion was suspended however, by a stunned surprise. Rather than catching up on the past, he was on a mission to make something right with me. He immediately began confessing that he felt he had obstructed my success more than twenty years previous and begged my forgiveness. Obviously, he was agonizing over this.
My heart broke for my brother as I reassured him that God forgave him and that I had never taken any offense. Actually, it never even occurred to me. I looked straight into his tear filled eyes and said “brother, what you need to do is forgive yourself.”
As I thought about it later, I recalled occasional conflicts with my former Assistant Pastor. There were disagreements at times and challenges to my leadership as senior Pastor but I never thought of any of it as mean spirited or offensive. What bothered me most was that this had troubled him for more than twenty years. It was unnecessary and self-inflicted.
“Perfect peace” is a promise of God’s Word. “Perfect” (GK), refers to completeness. Complete Peace involves three things; peace with God, peace with others and peace with yourself.
Peace with God, is certain by the Blood of Christ. We are justified by faith, just as if we never sinned and free forever from any concern about wrath.
Peace with others, of course is right relationships, loving your neighbor as yourself and doing what we can to right our wrongs.
But peace with ourselves is often overlooked. Only we can forgive ourselves. It’s the last challenge to living in complete rest in your heart and soul, i.e. “perfect peace.” Ironically, it can be the most difficult of the three.
The Bible says, “thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.”[1] If God is satisfied, and we have done all we can to love others, we are free to walk out of any self imposed prison cell of guilty thinking. Forgiving yourself is the doorway out. Jesus says, follow me, I don’t condemn you. Twenty years behind an unlocked door is a tragedy.
[1] Is.26:3