Express Your Joy to God

In this series, Thriving in God's Garden, we are learning this week about joy. We know now that abuse steals our joy, and hardships can cause it to falter. But trusting in God to restore our joy always brings about positive results. Today, we look at ways to express our joy to God.

Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent
When I was three years old, I received a much-anticipated gift at Christmas: Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent. For those of you who aren't quite as old as I am, Cecil was a cartoon character, and I desperately wanted him.

My dad took a home movie of me when I discovered Cecil under the tree. You've never seen a reaction quite like mine on that day. I flapped my hands like a hummingbird's wings and ran in place as if I were standing on hot coals. Then, I began jumping up and down, and the grin on my face nearly split my head in two.

My reaction to Cecil was an excellent example of what joy looks like. Ever since then, when I get really excited about something that makes me joyful, I break into the Cecil Dance.

Life can suck the dance right out of us.
We are born to experience the type of joy that I felt over Cecil's arrival on Christmas. But devastating experiences, such as childhood sexual abuse, dometic violence, or traumatic events can drain the joy completely out of us.

And we don't have to be victims of abuse or trauma to have our joy dampened by all of the rules and regulations imposed on us as children. Grown-ups tell us not to run, not to shout, not to jump up and down when we're excited. We're taught to keep our mouths shut and to act like little ladies and gentlemen.

Many of us struggle with depression, because we have never been allowed to let our joy shine. We go to lackluster jobs that we hate, socialize with people who bore us, and deny ourselves many pleasures, because we've been taught that it's wrong to kick up our heels and giggle.

Show God your joy.
There are many ways to express the joy that God gives us. Psalm 66:1 (NIV) tells us, Shout with joy to God, all the earth! Sing the glory of his name; make his praise glorious! Psalm 149:3 (NIV) says, Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp.

If you can't do the Cecil Dance around other people when you're happy, at least show God that you're joyful behind closed doors. During your prayer time, thank him for the countless blessings that you receive every day. If you don't feel blessed, remember that every breath you draw is a gift from God. Start there.

Before long, you'll begin to realize that you're whistling a little tune or humming to yourself. Because when you're thankful, joy bubbles forth.

Find ways to pop the cork and let your joy bubble over. Maybe you can join the church choir or play an instrument in the band. Music is a powerful way to express our joy. My favorite way to express joy is to play hymns and praise music on the piano.

If music isn't your strong suit, perhaps you can express your joy through art. Painting, drawing, sewing, embroidering, knitting, scrapbooking, beading, and many other crafts provide us with an outlet for creativity. In my opinion, creativity is merely the outward expression of our inner joy.

Not a musician or an artist? How about dancing? You don't have to be Ginger Rogers or Fred Astaire to express the joy you feel. Just crank up the radio in your own house and start jumping around. Let the music lead you, and before you know it, you'll be grinning.

I hope you're getting the picture about how to generate joy and how to express it to God. Tomorrow, we'll look at ways to share our joy with others.

Today's Challenge
In your prayer time, tell God thank you for all that he does to bless you. Then, find a way today to express your gratitude to him through music, art, or dance.

God's Joy Sustains Us Through Hard Times

We continue this week with thoughts about joy in my series, Thriving in God's Garden. Yesterday, we learned that we find joy when we develop a relationship with God. Today, we consider how our joy may decrease during hard times.

God's joy sustains us through hard times.
After we have left an abusive relationship and struck out on our own, we may still encounter hardships. Having the faith to follow God does not guarantee that our lives will become nothing but sunshine and roses.

Habakkuk 3:17-18 (NIV) reminds us that there will be hard times. But it also points out that God will still be our source of joy when those times come:

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Our level of joy can rise and fall.
After I divorced my first husband, I felt relieved to be freed from so many years of abuse. But, I also struggled with difficulties that threatened to steal my joy. For the first time in years, I had a full-time job. I felt completely overwhelmed by a workload that should have been shared by three people.

My children were thrust into the world of the latch-key bunch, and they endured battles of their own. My son got knocked off his bicycle on his way to school by a hit-and-run driver and ended up with a broken wrist. All of the kids struggled with the inevitable adjustments that go along with divorce and relocation.

The life changes we were experiencing caused all of the children and me a great deal of pain, and at the time, we weren't exactly whistling Dixie over it. During hard times, our joy may decrease for a while. But if we have a solid relationship with God, we can learn how to restore our joy.

Gratitude helps us to restore our joy.
When I looked back later at incidents, such as my son's broken wrist, I began to understand that knowing God made things a little easier. I thanked him for resolving problems for us and providing for our needs. Whenever I thanked God, I felt a little happier. And suddenly, for the first time in my life, I began to connect gratitude with joy.

If we look up joy in the Bible, we can find countless verses where thankfulness and joy go hand in hand. Many of the Psalms are based on this combination. Psalm 21:1 (NIV) reads, O Lord, the king rejoices in your strength. How great is his joy in the victories you give! Giving God thanks for our daily victories fills us with joy, even when life is difficult.

So, we know that leaving behind abusive, neglectful relationships can increase our joy. And relying on God to restore our joy, both in good times and in bad, is the best source of renewal. Tomorrow, we will look at ways that we can express our joy to God.

Today's Challenge
Are you going through a hard time right now? God promises to restore your joy. Look in his Word for references to joy and thank him, as the psalmist did, for your daily victories.

Why Don't We Feel Joyful?

We continue this week with my series, Thriving in God's Garden, with a look at joy. As a fruit of the Spirit of God, it can make our lives more beautiful, and it spills over onto others when we share it. However, I meet more people whose lives are devoid of joy than the ones who are bubbling over. Many ask me how to find it, and I would like to share my thoughts.

What is joy?
The dictionary defines joy as:

1. the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation;

2. a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated;

3. the expression or display of glad feeling; festive gaiety; and

4. a state of happiness or felicity.

These four definitions can help us understand that there are differences between the source of our joy, the emotion of joy that we experience, ways of expressing our joy, and a state of mental and spiritual contentment that comes when the first three are appropriately experienced.

Eeyore Christians
I get really tired of hearing other believers say with a deep sigh and furrowed brow, "I'm joyful." Their lives are a mess, often because their most important relationships are in crisis. They have become confused about feeling joy and receiving joy. They think that all they need to do is accept joy from God, and they will feel it in their broken relationships. This is a myth.

Our source of joy begins with God.
We will never find true joy in this lifetime if we don't have an intimate relationship with God. With that in place, we are capable of actually feeling joyful in our relationships with others. The only problem we run into is when we try to force ourselves into or to remain in relationships with people who are not helping us to maintain the joy that God gives us.

We can think of joy as water. God holds the water pitcher. We hold out our cups to him, and when they overflow, we can pour off some of our water into others' cups.If our cup is empty, we cannot refresh ourselves, nor can we pour one for others. All we can do is tip the cup and pour out nothing.

When we're dry to the bone due to a lack of joy that begins with God, our lives become a constant struggle. We cannot work on relationships, because we are so spiritually thirsty. Joy is as critical to survival as water, air, and food.

We can express and receive joy if we know where to pour it.
When we meet people who are bubbling over with joy, it is because they have been filled with God's Spirit. It is also because they have learned where to pour it.

Like our water pitcher image, their cups are brimming over, and the pitcher just keeps refilling them. God is that source of joy, and he promises to fill us with his Spirit. Psalm 23:5 (NIV) reminds us, You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.

This is an ideal image that we can strive for in our own lives. Imagine feeling giddy with joy, even while eating dinner with the person who hurts you the most. These verses sustain us when we are struggling, reminding us that God does not abandon us. His water pitcher is always full, and he keeps pouring until our cup overflows.

But notice that this verse doesn't say that we should make sure that we're sitting in the presense of our enemies at every meal. I can't think of a better way to destroy my joy than to force myself to spend all of my waking hours with people who would love to destroy me.

God calls us to do many things, and one that most people don't think about is that we are supposed to fiercely guard the Spirit that lives within us. St. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 (NIV):

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common"? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of the living God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore, come out from them and be separate," says the Lord. "Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters," says the Lord Almighty.

My life was once so joyless, I wanted to die. It wasn't until I realized that forcing myself to remain in relationship with unbelievers was draining all joy out of me. When I separated myself from them, I felt joy for the first time in decades.

Relationships with unbelievers can rob us of our joy.
Imagine if we each had a plastic cup for receiving a drink of water, but we cut the bottom out of it. That seems like a really dumb thing to do if we're thirsty, doesn't it?

But countless Christians are holding out their God-receiving cups with the bottoms cut out of them. God's pitcher keeps pouring in joy, but their life choices continue to destroy their ability to hold onto it.

Marriage seems to be a place where Christians haven't figured this out. They think that a relationship devoid of intimacy with an unbeliever is where they must remain, because they made a vow to God.

Please don't get me wrong here. I believe it is important to do what God tells us and to keep our promises. I hate divorce as much as the next person. But I don't believe that Christians who are married to unbelievers are supposed to martyr themselves over a marriage that is dead. These people are so devoid of joy, it breaks my heart.

They fail to see the harm that their spouse and their marriage is causing them. They don't understand that a neglectful or abusive spouse is an unfaithful spouse, whom Jesus tells us we may leave in Matthew 19:9 (NIV): I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, EXCEPT FOR MARITAL UNFAITHFULNESS, and marries another woman commits adultery.

Guilt-ridden, misinformed Christians read that line which tells them they will become adulterers if they divorce and remarry. What they miss is the phrase that comes in between: except for marital unfaithfulness. Emotional neglect or physical abuse are both forms of marital unfaithfulness. No Christian is expected to stay in a marriage with a spouse who is unfaithful. Period. They may choose to stay, but expecting to experience joy in the process is just not logical.

Many survivors of childhood abuse wind up in marriages with partners who emotionally neglect them or physically abuse them. The wounds of marital emotional neglect run much deeper than the scars of physical abuse. I know. I've been there. I would rather be beaten daily than neglected. Emotional neglect leaves us so drained of all joy that we can barely put one foot ahead of the next.

What is really sad is that these victims of marital neglect beat themselves up daily. They blame themselves for the marriage conflict, feel consumed by guilt for feeling angry about the situation which they believe God wants them to remain in, and struggle with perfectionism and control issues as they attempt to change their mates.

I lived like this for years in my first marriage, and I can honestly say that I was a shriveled-up sponge on a desert floor. There was no joy in anything, because my cup was empty, and my lifestyle just continued to drain away whatever joy God had to give.

Patch up your bottomless cup to find joy.
It is my opinion that the only way to restore our bottomless cup is to step back from a relationship that continues to eat away at our vessel. God has the ability to patch up any mistakes we've made along the way. And without that other person continually destroying our cup, God can refill it. When he does, look out!

For the first time, we understand what true joy really feels like. A cup filled to the brim and overflowing is evident in a person's life. He walks with a bounce in his step, whistles while he works, greets everyone with a broad smile, and laughs without reserve.

So, if we look like Eeyore and tell others that we're full of God's joy, we'd better prepare ourselves for a surprise. Somewhere along the way, a person with some guts will tell us that we're full of something else.

It wasn't until I quit lying to myself and to the world about being joyful that I was able to step out of that cup-destroying relationship and let God fill me up. Then, from a distance, I could see the truth about the realities of my broken marriage. God restored my cup, filled me with joy, and showed me the stupidity of dining regularly with my enemies. Today, I know what it feels likes to receive God's joy, to experience it with a husband and friends who love me deeply, and to share it with others. I pray that for you, too, dear reader.

Today's Challenge
God is our source of joy, but our relationships determine how easily we keep our cups full. If you're in a draining relationship, step back and figure out why you're allowing someone to cut the bottom out of your soul. Look at yourself and think about changing you, not the other person.

Love Your Neighbor As Yourself

This week, we have learned that God loves us so much that he gave up his only son to die for us. Therefore, we have good reason to love him in return for his graciousness to us. We are called to share that love with all people and to pray for those who have hurt us. Today, I would like to look at what it means to love our neighbors in my series, Thriving in God's Garden.

The Golden Rule
When a teacher of the law asked Jesus which commandment was the most important, this was his response. "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:29-31 NIV)

Love your neighbor as yourself has come to be known as The Golden Rule. There is no greater law that governs how people are supposed to treat one another. So what, exactly, does it mean to love our neighbors as ourselves?

Do you love yourself?
Many people who have suffered the trauma of childhood sexual abuse or domestic violence have very low opinions of themselves. They find it difficult to love themselves, because they either feel degraded and ashamed of themselves, or they have been brainwashed into believing that they are worthless. In order to love others, we must first learn to love ourselves.

This means that we actually accept the love that God has to offer. And when we reach out and take it from him, we love him back by changing the way we live. We give up habits that would make God feel unwelcome in our homes. And we turn away from any lifestyle that would harm our bodies. After all, God's Spirit lives inside of us when we become Christians, so we really need to keep ourselves pure.

Love people who aren't easy to love.
So, if we're behaving ourselves so that we can feel good about our lives, we can learn to share God's love with others. Most of us have no difficulty loving our children or our pets. Some have a little trouble loving spouses. Many of us struggle when it comes to loving certain neighbors, because they aren't exactly easy to love.

We used to have a neighbor who drank together with her adult children every night. While we were trying to sleep, the neighbors were shouting obscenities at one another and breaking beer bottles in their backyard. After many sleepless nights, Joe went to ask them to quiet down. That lasted about ten minutes.

The next night, we decided it was best to call the police. After a cop arrived to tell the neighbors to take their party inside, we could hear them bickering about who caused the problem and speculating that we were the people who had turned them in.

It was difficult to be pleasant to this woman, because she was drunk and surly at night and then withdrawn during the day. Nevertheless, we tried our best to be good neighbors to her. When I picked vegetables from the garden, I shared them with her. I baked cookies for her children and gave her books I had finished reading. I can't say that we ever became friends, but I tried my best to love my neighbor.

Today's Challenge
Is there someone in your life who needs to feel God's love? Perhaps there's a co-worker, a neighbor, a child down the block, or an elderly person who needs to feel a connection to God through you. Take time today to speak with that person, offer them a small gift, or do a chore for them. By loving someone else, you will find that you love yourself a little bit more in the process.

Love Your Enemies

We continue today with our series, Thriving in God's Garden, a study based on the fruit of the Spirit as described in Galatians 5:22. This week, we are learning about our love relationship with God and with others. Today, I would like to discuss how we can love our enemies.

What does the Bible say about love for our enemies?
Luke 6:27-28 (NIV) reads: But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Jesus spoke these words to his disciples to make three points:

1) We should never treat others spitefully, even when they abuse us;
2) We should love everyone; and
3) We should go the extra mile to express love to our enemies.

How can we protect ourselves from further abuse?
When I used to read this passage, my warning signals began going off. I knew that if I expressed love in practical ways to the abusive people in my life, they would come after me like a pack of wolves on an injured sheep.

We often mistakenly interpret this message to mean that we must put ourselves into a relationship with people who abuse us. This is not what Jesus meant. We can love them from a distance, and Jesus gave us examples of how we might do that.

Show your enemies your love in appropriate ways.
For women who have been victims of domestic violence or adults who suffered childhood sexual abuse, expressing love to their abusers can be difficult. But it is not impossible.

First, let me say that there are ways to express love to abusers that I would not recommend. If your expression of love results in your abuser verbally abusing you, emotionally destroying you at every opportunity, physically harming you, or taking advantage of you sexually for their own gratification; you should immediately remove yourself and any children from such a situation. Every individual's emotional, physical, sexual, and spiritual safety must be considered first.

Many abusers do not have the skills to live within a relationship without hurting or using others. Therefore, we must be careful to protect ourselves when we express love to them. If we are kind to them, and in return we receive more abuse, it may be time to step back and wait. In some cases, our abusers may never respond appropriately, but at least we can say we have tried.

When we are in a safe place and free from further abuse, we can find ways to express love to that person who hurt us. From a human perspective, this can feel impossible. But if we pray and ask Jesus to help us love, we may be surprised by what happens.

At first, loving our enemies begins with a lessening of the hatred and anger we feel toward them. Over time, we let go of our need to control the situation or to seek revenge. Eventually, with God's help, we can get to the point where we actually wish only good for our abusers.

When we get to that point of recovery, we can find ways to do good for our abusers and to bless them. Here are some practical ways we can bless our abusers without getting hurt again. We can:

-Stop bringing up the past and recounting all of the horrific things our abusers did. We can talk about our pain with a counselor or with God, and then let it go.
-Pray that God will bless our abusers with the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
-Send our abusers simple cards of encouragement with loving Scripture verses included.
-If our abusers are incarcerated, we can send them gift packages that are provided by the prison system. These include food items, books, and games.

Don't use love to control outcomes with your enemies.
We learned in our previous series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness, that we are the last person our abuser needs to point out how he should change. If his heart is ever open, he may accept correction from someone else. This is not a job that we should take on.

Remember, the only person we can ever change is ourselves. So when we send cards or gifts, our underlying purpose must be only to express love, not to force an outcome that we desire.

When we express love to people who hate us, curse us, and do all kinds of evil things to hurt us; there is no longer much room in our hearts for returning the evil. It's hard to hate someone while expressing kindness to them. This is why Jesus encourages us to love everyone. It's a great antidote for getting stuck in a place of bitterness and revenge.

Today's Challenge
Take some time to think about how you might safely express love to someone who has hurt you. Make a list of ideas and share it with a counselor or trusted friend. Ask them to help you sort out which ideas would be most helpful to your enemy without jeopardizing your safety. Take action to express love in one way to your enemy when the timing is right.

Do You Love God?

In our current series, Thriving in God's Garden, we are focusing on the topic of love this week. Yesterday, we took time to think about the depth of God's love for us. Today, I would like to reflect upon what we are doing with that love.

Love is a two-step process.
When God sends love our way, it's the beginning of a process. Until we accept his love and return it to him, the process is incomplete. Think of someone serving a tennis ball to us, which we just stand and watch without even attempting to hit it back. We aren't in the game until we return the love that God volleys our way.

If God's love is so wonderful, why are so many of us standing with our arms dangling at our sides, watching it pass us by?

True Love versus Love Myths
As survivors of childhood sexual abuse, we frequently confuse our need for God's love with our need for reassurance and safety. We have been lied to about what love is through the perverse actions of people who were supposed to love and nurture us.

If the abuse doesn't leave us confused about love, we are further bombarded with fairy tales about handsome princes when we're little. As we grow up, chick flicks send us the mythical message that we'll be happy if we find the perfect husband.

Without a clear understanding of God's love, we may blunder into unhealthy relationships and marriages. When we don't find the mythical love that we thought was ours for the taking, we blunder back out of those relationships through divorce. And if we don't take the time to understand God's true love along the way, we may blunder through numerous marriages and divorces.

So, if mythical love is all wrong, how do we find our way to the true love that only God can offer us?

Godly men set great examples.
A healthy earthly father exhibits the fruit of the Spirit, as we learned yesterday. He is loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. If he is walking with God, he reflects God's character. Does this describe your father?

If you did not grow up with this type of father, I hope that God sent other men throughout your childhood to model these character traits for you. God sent me a neighbor, a cousin, a teacher, and a bus driver who were all excellent examples of the way a father should love his children.

So many single mothers worry that their boys need a good male role model around. But I believe it's just as important for girls to have a godly man in their lives, because it helps them to learn how to accept God's love throughout their lives. It also teaches them what to look for in a mate.

How much do you love God?
Today, I would like you to think about how much you love God. This can be a really difficult concept for people who have been abused by their fathers or other men in their families. Sexual predators made it really tough for us to love or respect God, our heavenly Father.

For years, I struggled with this concept of returning God's love. I knew that he loved me, but I could never seem to connect with him in a way that felt as if we were in a relationship.

And then I began watching movies which Joe brought home: Matthew and The Gospel of John , both produced by a company known as The Visual Bible. They are word-for-word portrayals of the Bible's descriptions of Jesus' life here on earth. They show clearly how much Jesus loves us.

In Matthew 22:37 (NIV), Jesus told his disciples, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'" As I watched Jesus loving his disciples, and the disciples crying over him during the crucifixion, I recognized for the first time what it would feel like to be in a love relationship with God. It moved me to tears.

Today, if you visit my house, you may find one of these movies playing in the background as I sew, clean, or cook. The Gospel messages serve as constant reminders that God offers the only true love there is. And they help me remember that it's safe and reassuring if I return that love to him.

How do we love God?
We can return God's love by praying to him, singing to him, standing in his presence, entering into a place of silence with him, listening to his voice, and appreciating his Word. In response to his love, we may shout, dance, clap, or laugh. His love may inspire us to write poetry, compose music, paint pictures, or create beautiful things that reflect that love.

We don't have to wait until we're in church to show God how much we love him. Imagine how awful we'd feel if we could only express love to others for one hour each week. We can love God all day long every day.

Today's Challenge
You may love your spouse, your kids, your cat, or even your possessions. But how much do you love God? Take time today to think about this, and if you're struggling with this concept, read the Gospel of John or watch The Visual Bible movies. Afterward, write in your journal about how God's Word changed the way you express love to God.

Release Your Enemy to God

For the past two months, we have journeyed together through my series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness. Today is the final post on this topic. Next week, we will begin a new series based on the fruit of the Spirit, titled Thriving in God's Garden.

Forgiveness is a long journey.
For a number of years, I have been working through this process of forgiving the people who have hurt me the most. I would like to thank my friends and readers who have offered their thoughts about this topic. You have all been extremely helpful. The following paragraphs contain my conclusions about how a survivor of abuse or trauma can remove the roadblocks to forgiveness and begin to thrive.

We are deeply wounded by abuse or trauma.
First, we must acknowledge that childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, and trauma all leave us with scars. When our perpetrators are finished with us, we may feel:

angry,
fearful,
mistrusting,
incompetent,
guilty,
vengeful,
prideful,
hateful, or
depressed.

Before we can forgive, we must face the truth about our past. If it was hurtful, we need to admit that to ourselves. Then, we need to ask God to comfort us.

Misunderstandings about forgiveness stand as roadblocks for us.
Second, we must realize that many misunderstandings about forgiveness stand in our way to achieving inner peace. These roadblocks to forgiveness include the following:

Roadblock #1: We must learn to get along with evil people.
Often, victims of childhood sexual abuse are told by their abusers that sexual activity between children and adults is good. Harming a child for self-gratification is never good. Actions such as these are always evil, but evil people may try to convince us that they are good.

When we fail to recognize the differences between good and evil, we get stranded on the side of the forgiveness road. The Bible tells us that good and evil cannot coexist. Therefore, we must separate ourselves from the people who continue to abuse us so that we can clearly understand the differences between good and evil.

By studying the Bible, talking with mature Christians, and praying for God to make us more like him, we can clear up this misunderstanding that we must learn to live with evil people. We can finally see that whatever opposes God's law or his character is evil. And whatever imitates him is good.

By learning to see God from a more balanced perspective, we can move forward on the road to forgiving by letting go of the people who are evil. In doing this, we learn without a doubt that our God is balanced, offering blessings to those who obey him and punishment for those who oppose him.

Roadblock #2: I am superior to my enemy.
As victims of serious crimes, we often see ourselves as superior to our perpetrators. This attitude always stands in our way of inner peace. As long as we think the entire problem lies with our enemy, we will remain stalled in our quest to forgive.

We must learn to see ourselves as God does, just as faulty on the inside as our enemies. If we are ever going to forgive them, we have to learn what the entire forgiveness process entails. The steps to forgiving mean that we:

-recognize that God's character defines all that is good,
-recognize that whatever opposes God's character is evil,
-admit that we have faults, just as our enemy does,
-humbly ask God to forgive our sins,
-accept God's grace and let go of all guilt,
-turn our life completely around so that we can imitate God better,
-ask others whom we have hurt for their forgiveness, and
-offer restitution to anyone we have hurt.

Roadblock #3: I have to restore the relationship with my enemy.
The biggest roadblock to forgiveness looms before us when we confuse forgiveness with reconciliation. To reconcile means that we put our differences aside and resume a relationship with someone who has hurt us.

Many people assume that if we forgive someone, we have to invite them back into our lives. This is not true. It is perfectly okay for us to remove ourselves permanently from the influence of someone who has hurt us or continues to hurt us. Even if the person who hurt us is a member of our own family, we do not have to invite them back into our lives.

Roadblock #4: I have to teach my enemy how to apologize.
So many victims believe that it is their duty to teach their enemies how to admit their sin, receive God's grace, and change their lives. As victims, we are the last people who should be doing this. We will only be seen as preachy hypocrites in our enemy's eyes. It is far better to pray for them from a distance, asking God to send others to change them. We can never force our enemies into changing so that we can forgive them.

Roadblock #5: I have to tell him, "I forgive you."
Many victims assume that they have to walk up to the criminal who has hurt them and say the words, "I forgive you," even if that person has never accepted responsibilty for his actions, apologized, changed his life, or offered restitution. This assumption hurts both victim and perpetrator.

When a victim tells her perpetrator, "I forgive you," without any forgiveness effort on his part, she sets herself up for further abuse. Many abusers see this pardon as a green light to resume the behaviors that must not have been all that bad. Otherwise, in their minds, the forgiveness would not have been forthcoming.

This type of pseudo-forgiveness hurts the perpetrator, too. It robs him of the opportunity to learn how to humble himself before God and the people he has hurt. It steals away the time he needs to figure out how to accept and give forgiveness.

The best way to handle an unrepentant enemy who has never truly accepted responsiblity for his actions or sincerely apologized for them is to say these words to God alone: "I release my enemy into your hands. I am willing to forgive him when he is ready. Please help him."

The words we may choose to say to our enemies from a distance, either by phone or letter, are these: "You have hurt me. I am willing to forgive you after you have learned what it takes to be forgiven. Until then, we cannot be in a relationship." Enough said. Hang up or sign the letter.

We can only change ourselves.
Third, when we release our enemies, we let go of our need to control the outcome. Instead of spending the rest of our lives focused on how our perpetrator needs to change, we can focus on changing ourselves. In the meantime, we get out of the way so that God can work on our enemy's heart.

We change ourselves by learning as much as we can about God's character, and then we imitate him to the best of our ability. We learn, as I have taught in this series, what it takes to humble ourselves before God and others to offer sincere apologies when we hurt people. We follow up our apologies with offers of restitution, and we try our best to learn a lesson so that we don't repeat the same mistakes.

By focusing on our own need for forgiveness, we let go of our preoccupation with our enemy's need for forgiveness. This frees us to go back and clean up the messes that were caused by the original abuse, such as our anger, fear, lack of trust, low self-esteem, guilt, vengefulness, pride, hatred, and depression.

We should show others how to forgive.
Fourth, we should share these newfound lessons about forgiveness with others. Now that you understand the truth about the forgiveness journey and how you can remove the roadblocks, I hope you'll begin to thrive! When you feel confident, I hope you'll teach the process to others by modeling appropriate forgiveness throughout your life.

I am at peace.
Somewhere along the way, God helped me to let go of the bitterness and anger that I felt toward the people who have deeply hurt me. When I began to pray that he would help me let go of them, my grip on the list of their faults began to loosen.

Today, I am at peace, because I realize that it is not my job to point out my enemies' faults to them. I am the last person they need to hear from regarding how badly they have failed at the forgiveness process. Some therapists advocate confronting abusers to tell them exactly how much they have hurt us. I disagree. God knows what they've done. We can tell him about our hurts and leave our enemies in his capable hands.

I continue to pray that my enemies will learn about the forgiveness process, because it brings such peace. I have released the people who have hurt me into God's hands, and I look forward to the outcomes he is able to bring about in their lives. Perhaps they will come to me someday to show me that they are sincerely sorry. If that happens, we will all rejoice together.

In the meantime, this search for a way to forgive my enemies has led me to the realization that I needed to be humbled. I am not perfect, and I've made a lot of mistakes along the way. Holding onto the pain of my past was hurting me far more than it was helping my enemies to see the error of their ways.

Share your insights about forgiveness with me.
Thank you for taking this road trip with me. I value your feedback, so please post your comments here or send them to me at cheryldenton@rocketmail.com.

Join me next week as we begin my new series, Thriving In God's Garden.

Restitution Makes Our Apologies Sincere

We have just two days remaining in this series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness. We have discovered that asking God to forgive us and apologizing to the people we have hurt helps us to understand what we want our enemies to do. Before we can forgive them, we must figure out how to achieve forgiveness from the people we have wronged.

What is restitution?
The dictionary defines restitution as 1) the act of restoring to the rightful owner soemthing that has been taken away, lost, or surrendered; and 2) the act of making good or compensating for loss, damage, or injury.

The Bible is very clear about how restitution comes into play during the process of forgiving. The Lord said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites: 'When a man or woman wrongs another in any way and so is unfaithful to the Lord, that person is guilty and must confess the sin he has committed. He must make full restitution for his wrong, add one fifth to it and give it all to the person he has wronged.'" (Number 5:5-7 NIV)

This decree was given to ancient Israel to ensure that relationships were restored between the offender and God, as well as between the guilty party and the person he wronged. I really like the fact that this passage shows us that when we hurt someone else, we become unfaithful to God. As our love for God grows, we should become more and more hesitant to hurt others.

God's law remains in effect today. And when it comes to forgiveness, restitution is still an important act. Whenever we offer to repay what we have stolen or spoiled, we open the door to the other person's heart. With an open heart, the person we have wronged becomes more capable of offering us the type of lasting forgiveness that we desire.

How can we offer restitution?
When we apologize to someone, we should freely offer restitution to them so that they know we are sincere. For example, if I borrow my friend's car and crumple the fender while backing into a parking space, I should pay to repair the car. I should add one-fifth to the damages by also providing her with a rental car during the repair period, having her car detailed afterward, or giving her an additional gift of my choosing.

Imagine in this scenario if I merely handed my friend the car keys, said "I'm sorry," and walked away without offering anything else. Our relationship would probably be over. She might burn with anger every time she looked at the dent in her fender. My lack of restitution could actually lead to her sin of repressed anger, revenge, or hatred.

The more we give and the longer we continue giving to someone we have wronged, the more credible we become in the eyes of the person who is trying to forgive us. Remember, restitution is important, because it serves as a salve to the emotional wounds that must be healed before complete forgiveness can be offered.

Restitution is what we are longing for from our enemies.
For those of us who have suffered traumatic events or abuse, forgiveness means that someone makes our enemy repay what he stole from us. Childhood sexual abuse is one of the most costly crimes imaginable, because it robs a child of her trust in humankind, her self-confidence, and her courage. It leaves her in a state of depression that may linger for the rest of her life. What price can we put on such losses?

The court system agrees with psychotherapists that it will generally take a survivor of childhood sexual abuse approximately 7 to 15 years of regular treatment sessions to resume living as the rest of the world does. The out-of-pocket costs for such treatment averages $75 per hour. If a survivor of abuse attends treatment every other week, the cost of treatment ranges from $13,650 to $29,250.

Add to these costs the heavy penalty that the survivor pays throughout her life as she struggles to interact with others. Her fears, low self-esteem, guilt, shame, and depression serve to hamper many of her efforts. She may never achieve all that she had hoped for prior to the abuse. There is no amount of money that can ever restore such profound losses.

With profound loss comes extreme anger and hatred. We have learned how counter-productive these feelings are, but we understand why they are there.

Can you see why the offender offering restitution is so critical? As he pays to restore what was lost, the victim's feelings of anger and hatred subside. Eventually, she will get to a point of feeling that he has done enough. Then, she will be ready to say those all important words, "I forgive you."

Do whatever it takes to restore relationships.
We can choose to do whatever it takes to restore harmony between ourselves and the people we have hurt. In doing so, we help them to forgive us. This is desirable for both of us, because if they can't forgive us, God won't forgive them for their wrongs. We may play a huge part in keeping someone at a distance from God if we don't apologize and make things right. Remember, our sin hurts others, but it also hurts everyone's relationship with God.

Now, we have a complete picture of what forgiveness looks like. We identify God's character, figure out how we have failed, admit our problems to God, ask for his forgiveness, accept his grace, change our ways, ask others to forgive us, and then offer restitution. As you can see, forgiveness is a long process. Tomorrow, we will apply this process to our enemies as we conclude our series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness.

Today's Challenge
In your journal, make a list of the people you have hurt over the years. Begin today to offer apologies and restitution to everyone on your list. While you wait for your enemy to find a way to extend an apology to you, your actions will help you and many others to become restored to God and one another.

Admit Your Faults

We continue with our series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness. Now that we have learned how to recognize both righteousness and sin, we move on today with a look into our own faults. Recognizing that we are not perfect takes us one step closer to forgiving our enemies who have abused or traumatized us.

Forgiveness is impossible without humility.
If we want to forgive someone, we cannot keep an attitude of pride or superiority toward them. If we approach forgiveness with our noses in the air, we either make our enemies defensive, or we make them feel insignificant. Neither outcome is pleasing to God, who calls us to love one another.

I Peter 5:5 (NIV) tells us, All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." We can see that our efforts to forgive will be opposed by God if we approach the process with prideful attitudes. Our efforts are backed up by God's grace is we approach forgiveness with humility.

Stop judging your enemy.
There is an old saying that whenever we point a finger at someone, there are three others pointing back at us. We cannot forgive if we are focused on our enemy's sins. Jesus said in Matthew 7:3-5 (NIV):

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Beginning today, stop thinking about and clinging to all of the things that your enemy did to hurt you. Release these bitter thoughts to God and focus, instead, on the sweetness of his love for you.

Start examining yourself.
Lamentations 3:40 (NIV) reads, Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord. Before any of us can forgive, we must look deep within to examine the condition of our own hearts. We are all sinners, and those of us who have suffered abuse or trauma generally carry with us sins such as anger, revenge, pride, and hatred.

I am not asking you to examine yourself to see if you have any sin. I'm asking you to look into your soul to see which sins need to be addressed. Through prayer, ask God to reveal your sins to you. Ask a trusted friend or your spouse what sins they see in you.

Admit your sins to God.
After you have identified which sins are hindering you from forgiving, admit them to God. He already knows what they are, but confessing them to him will relieve you of the burden of carrying them around.

Tell God that you have made a mess of your life and that you cannot manage it any longer. Ask him to lead you. Then pray that God will give you the good sense to follow him, rather than expecting him to act like a genie in a bottle whenever you need him to carry out a task for you. Remember, Christianity is about learning how to be a follower, not the leader. Leading is God's job, not ours.

Tell one other person about your sins.
We are not required to go to confession to have our sins forgiven. Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection gave us full access to him. However, I believe that telling someone whom we can trust about our faults gives us a great deal of leverage against sin. With an accountability partner knowing about our shortcomings, we have greater power through their prayers and encouragement.

Admitting our own faults is an important step in the forgiveness process. Why? Because we expect our enemies to admit their faults to us. And if we're going to come to an understanding of how difficult that can be for them, we must be willing to do it first.

I think about how hard it must have been for my father to carry around the secret of child molestation for so many years. Imagine how hard that would be. If just one child spoke out, his life would come tumbling down like a house of cards.

I am grateful that my dad finally confessed to the police about what he did to my daughter. It spared her from tremendous embarrassment and the stress involved with court appearances. More importantly, it set him on the road to forgiveness alongside us.

As we travel this journey, we are struggling to forgive someone who has deeply hurt us. It is important to remember that our enemies are struggling just as hard to let go of their sins. By admitting our own faults, we walk in their shoes. In doing so, we can begin to empathize with their battle.

Today's Challenge
Set aside some time for reflection and prayer. Ask God to reveal sins that you may not even be aware of in your quest to forgive. When they surface, write them down in your journal. Admit your sins to God and to one other trusted person. Write down how you think your enemy might be feeling about admitting his own faults. Begin to pray for him.

Recognize Sin

For the past few weeks, we have learned about God's character in our series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness. Today, we look at the concept of sin. By recognizing it in ourselves and in our enemies, we become better prepared to forgive those who have hurt us.

What is sin?
Previously, we defined righteousness as God's goodness, love, mercy, grace, patience, holiness, peacefulness, justice, jealousy, and wrath. Defining sin is simple, because it is the opposite of God's righteousness: sin is any failure to conform to God's character or law with any act or attitude.

Many times, we think of sin as those acts that people can see: lying, stealing, cheating, and so on. But God also prohibits attitudes such as jealousy, anger, and selfishness. Galatians 5:19-21 (NIV) describes both obvious and inner sins which can get us into trouble:

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, faction and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

It is easy to recognize sin in those who have hurt us.
I John 3:4 (NIV) tells us that Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. When someone abuses us or commits an act that leads to trauma, it is pretty easy to see it and label it as sin. Our justice system can prove a person's guilt, based on his actions and its interpretation of the law.

Ask any survivor of childhood sexual abuse if their perpetrator committed a sin when molesting them, and they will unequivocally answer with a resounding,Yes! Ask survivors of 911 whether or not the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center were sinning, and most will cry out, Undoubtedly!

It is not so easy to recognize sin in ourselves.
At the beginning of this series, I identified the roadblocks to forgiveness as anger, fear, lack of trust, low self-esteem, guilt, revenge, pride, hatred, and depression. Many of these characteristics are present in survivors of abuse and trauma.

I would like to assert that if these feelings are left unchecked, they can become a source of sin for survivors. For instance, we may feel a sense of anger toward our perpetrators. This is a natural response and drives us to seek help. However, if we allow ourselves to remain angry for the rest of time, I believe we have an issue with a sinful attitude.

For the past year, God has been using the case of my father molesting his grandchildren to teach me about my own sin. I never realized before how prideful I had been in comparing myself to others. Seeing my father taken away in handcuffs made me think about how guilty I have been of sinning.

I deserve eternal punishment for my sins of pride, anger, hatred, revenge, and unforgiveness. I thank God more than ever now for the gift of grace through Jesus' death on the cross. When we recognize our own sins, we become far more careful about committing more or looking at ourselves as superior to our enemies.

Sin does not change our standing with God if we're born-again Christians.
When a born-again Christian sins, his legal standing before God remains unchanged. Our salvation is not based on how well we behave, but is a gift from God. (Romans 6:23) In other words, even if we sin, we keep our adoption as one of God's children, and we get to spend eternity in heaven with him.

God disciplines us when we sin.
When we sin, God still loves us, but he may become displeased with us. As parents, we understand that we always love our children, but we may not be thrilled when they throw tantrums, break their curfews, or hit their siblings. We discipline them and teach them to improve.

We can count on God to discipline us when we sin, whether we commit evil acts or harbor sinful attitudes. Hebrews 12:10 (NIV) tells us, God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.

God disciplines all of his children.
Imagine a family where each of the children got punished for misbehaving, except for one. Think about how unruly and prideful that child might become.

We inevitably expect God to discipline our perpetrators for their sins against us, but how many of us ask God to bypass disciplining us when our attitudes toward our enemies get out of hand? We need to accept his discipline and learn from it so that we can become more like him each day.

Tomorrow, we will continue our discussion about sin with a look at people who are known as Vampire Christians. Are you one of them?

Today's Challenge
Do you have a different understanding of your sin now? Which one of your attitudes toward your enemy needs to be released to God? How do you feel now about God's discpline for you?

God Expects Honor

We continue with our series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness, with further thoughts about God's character. So far, we have learned about his goodness, love, mercy, grace, patience, holiness, peace, and justice. Today we look at God's expectations for us to honor him.

What is honor?
Honor is special esteem or respect that we give to someone. A soldier may receive honor for his service. We pay honor to people in positions of power, such as the governor or a judge.

God expects us to give him the highest honor.
While we may honor some of the people around us whom we respect, God inists that we honor him above all other people or things. The second commandment reads, "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God...(Exodus 20:4-5 NIV)

The Bible uses the word jealous whenever God speaks about his expectations regarding his honor. In other words, he will not put up with our placing anyone or anything ahead of him. He expects our fullest respect, similar to the way a husband might expect honor from his wife.

What is an idol?
When I was younger, I used to think that following this commandment was pretty easy. After all, I wasn't bowing down to carved idols in my backyard.

As I grew older, though, I began to realize that idols can be present in our lives without our even recognizing them. What do they look like? Idols can be our favorite TV shows, food, alcohol, gambling, electronic games, movie stars, books, cars, sports figures, goals, or even our exercise routines.

Perhaps I can clarify this with an example. Think about someone you know who is really enthusiastic about something...a golfer who hits the links daily to see how close he can come to par, a sports enthusiast who never misses a single baseball game all season, or a businesswoman who spends every waking hour knocking herself out to meet self-imposed goals.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these pursuits. Golf, baseball, and goal-setting are all useful activities. The trouble arises when a person ignores time with God in order to pursue them.

A good rule of thumb in determining whether idols are making God jealous is to consider how many hours each day are spent with God and how much time is spent on other interests. God expects us to give him more honor than we give to our television sets, our cars, our homes, our children, our jobs, our hobbies, and so on.

I'm not saying that we should quit our jobs and neglect our children. There is a balance in life regarding all of our responsibilities. But if we are honest with ourselves, my guess is that most of us spend far more time watching TV or pursuing our own interests than we do reading our Bibles. Our life gets out of balance and God gets jealous when we choose to spend our free time on everything except God.

Honor others more highly than yourself.
The point in studying God's expectations for honor is this: if we are imitators of God, we must learn to honor others more highly than ourselves. This comes back to an earlier post regarding pride and humility. We can never extend forgiveness to an enemy if we always regard ourselves with higher esteem than we do others.

The apostle Paul reminded early Christians, "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves." (Romans 12:10 NIV) This is easy to do with fellow believers who conduct themselves nicely. But do we really have to honor people who have abused or traumatized us?

The answer to that question in yes. With a spirit of humility, we can look inward and realize that we don't deserve special honor at all. Every one of us has sinned and deserves punishment for something we've done.

Humility is a great equalizer among members of the human race. We are all in the same predicament--deserving of God's punishment for sin. We are no different from our enemies who have deeply wounded us. They deserve our honor as much as the next guy.

How do we honor our enemies who have hurt us?
As I think about my father who molested a number of children in our family, I struggle with this concept of honoring others more highly than ourselves. I want to let my father know that I still honor him as my parent, but I don't know how to do that without confusing him. I'm afraid that if I extend a kindness to him in the form of a letter or visit, he will assume that I'm letting him off the hook for his crimes.

I suppose that the best thing I can do for the moment is to pray for my dad. I am asking God to protect him while he serves his prison sentence. And I pray that God will send good Christian volunteers and prison workers to talk to Dad about God's love for him. This seems like the safest form of honor I can extend to my father now.

Press on in your quest to forgive.
Forgiveness is such a difficult undertaking, but I believe that pursuing it pushes us to grow in many ways. We can't forgive until we fully understand God's character and how we are to imitate him.

This is no small task. But we must keep pressing on, because the rewards of forgiving are worth it. Stick with me through this. In just two weeks, we should all have a better understanding of how to forgive the one who has hurt us the most.

Today's Challenge
Think about how much of your time is spent honoring God. Do you read your Bible daily? Are you praying often? Do you participate in worship services or sing praises to him while you're alone? Do you tell others about his goodness? If not, what can you give up so that you have more time to devote to honoring God?

God Demands Justice

As we continue with our series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness, we learn about God's view of justice. In doing so, we strive to understand his character so that we can reach our ultimate goal of forgiving our enemies.

God is just.
God always does what is fair and right, because he himself sets the standard for what is just. Moses said of God, "He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he." (Deuteronomy 32:4 NIV)

A just God must punish sin.
Because God is just, he cannot tolerate sin. Therefore, people who practice evil acts must be punished. Sin never deserves reward; it is always wrong.

We were created in the likeness of God. As a result, we expect the world to be a place where justice reigns. This is why we cheer at the end of a movie or novel when the villain gets what's coming to him. The hero causes God's justice to prevail, so that we can believe all is right with the world.

God put judges in place to carry out his justice.
While we are all here on earth, God has devised a plan for judges to carry out his justice. They are responsible for determining punishments for those who break the law.

Sometimes, we are given the opportunity to provide judges with our input regarding our enemy's sentence. This occurred for our family recently as the judge prepared to set a jail term for my father. Members of the family were invited to write letters or speak in court about the impact of my father's crimes on their lives.

I believe there are pros and cons to this inclusion of the victim in the sentencing process. On the one hand, I believe it helps to restore a victim's personal power. If she feels that she has a say in the outcome of a criminal case, the control that the perpetrator stole from her is restored. I think that including the victim's family provides many people with the opportunity to express their grief over the losses that the crime created.

On the other hand, asking a victim to provide input for sentencing can create a new way for her to feel guilty. When the perpetrator goes to jail, the sexually abused victim may feel terrible if she has participated in the sentencing. She may even begin to worry that when the criminal is released, he will come after her to get even.

Justice brings healing to survivors of abuse or trauma.
If we have been the victim of sexual abuse or another crime, justice is an important part of our healing. When we are wounded, our spirits cry out to God for him to make things right. If our perpetrators are punished by the criminal justice system, we feel vindicated. Like the ending of a great novel, we feel satisfied that good has triumphed over evil.

While there is some sense of satisfaction in seeing our enemies pay for their crimes, there is also sadness attached to their punishment. God feels tremendous sadness when one of his children goes astray. If we are like God at all, we will feel both vindicated and sad when our perpetrator goes to jail.

I have been tracking my father's progress through the prison system since his sentencing a few weeks ago. One day, I discovered a mug shot of him online in his prison uniform. All of his life, Dad was very proud of the way he kept his hair. To my dismay, I discovered that his head had been shaved. The look on his face was so grim, I can only imagine how difficult his life has become behind bars. That picture brought me to tears.

Like most members of the family, I felt satisfied that my father was punished for his sex crimes against innocent children. But at the same time, it breaks my heart to think of my dad spending years in prison.

This situation has helped me to understand how God feels about us when we sin. His character demands that he punish evil, so he can't just ignore us when we commit evil acts. His heart breaks, just as mine does, to see someone he loves in jail.

God provided a substitute for our penalty.
John 3:16 (NIV) provides us with a way out of the punishment that we all deserve for our sins: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and ony Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

You see, God loves all of us--even sinners like my father who have been sent to jail. Out of the heartbreak that God feels over our sins, he came up with an alternative to sentencing us.

When God sent Jesus to die on the cross, he provided a substitute for our punishment. Even though we deserve to die for our sins, Christ already paid the price for us. All we have to do is acknowledge that Jesus is God's Son and then do our best to live according to God's laws.

If people refuse to believe that Jesus is God's Son, or believers refuse to conform to God's laws; they can expect to be punished for their sins. We learned previously that God is loving, merciful, gracious, and patient. It gives us all hope that he will give us as many second chances as we need to get our act together.

But make no mistake: our God who demands justice will not let us go on sinning indefinitely without disciplining us. Like any loving Father, he will figure out a punishment that will bring us back in line with what is right. If we fail to respond, our punishment may last into eternity.

Today's Challenge
Write down in your journal how you feel about justice. Do you believe that child molesters should be punished? How do you think God views criminals? Do they deserve God's mercy? Are they 'eligible' for forgiveness from God? from us?

God Desires Peace

As we continue with our series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness, we focus today on the seventh of ten attributes that make up God's character: peace.

God's peace is more than just the absence of conflict.
While Webster's Dictionary defines peace as the absence of war or other hostilities, the concept of God's peace means so much more. God's peace is an absence of all confusion and disorder. The apostle Paul reminded believers in the early church, "For God is not a God of disorder but of peace." (I Cor 14:33 NIV)

In God's mind, peace goes far beyond the absence of war. Peace can be found in the crystals of a snowflake that are so mathematically perfect, mankind can barely fathom its creation. Peace can be seen in the way that a person comes to believing faith in Christ after numerous experiences have softened his heart. Everything that God creates is begun with peace: an orderly plan that changes confusion into understanding and brings order to chaos.

If things are chaotic or in a state of disorder, it is because mankind's sin has created confusion. For instance, God desires marriage to be the union of one man and one woman for a lifetime. We've created chaos with same-sex marriages and divorce. People who abuse their spouses or molest their children are disturbing the peace that God wants for marriage and family.

God never stops working to orchestrate peace.
God is fully in control of maintaining a well-ordered world. He uses his infinite wisdom, knowledge, and power to bring about countless activities that have the potential to create greater peace. God never stops working, as we can see in Psalm 121:4 (NIV): He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

Sometimes, our lives feel as if they are completely out of control. Abuse can leave us feeling so bitter toward our enemy and toward God that we don't know how to regain balance. In spite of our confusion, God is never perplexed about what to do with any given situation. But we must turn to him for answers about how to get our lives back in alignment with his plans for peace.

God wants us to imitate him to bring about his peace.
Christians can use Galatians 5:22 (NIV) as a measuring stick for determining whether or not they are imitating God's character. The verse reads, But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

As a tree bears edible fruit, Christians are called to bear spiritual fruit--actions which allow the rest of the world to see that they are imitators of Jesus Christ. What are you doing to bring about God's peace in your corner of the world?

Forgiveness requires us to understand God's peace.
When we attempt to forgive people who have abused or traumatized us, it can be very difficult if we don't apply these principles of God's peace to the situation. Remember, God's peace doesn't necessarily mean an absence of conflict.

In fact, Jesus said, "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies will be the members of his own household. (Matthew 10:34-36 NIV)

Jesus was pointing out in this passage that there cannot be peace between his children and the devil's children. Conflict occurs all the time between members of the same household, because some follow God's ways, and others follow Satan's ways.

When members of our family filed charges against my father for sexually abusing them, believe me when I say that these actions did not bring about peace. Conflict of the greatest magnitude imaginable ensued.

But the conflict didn't begin with the legal charges; it began with my father's sin of molesting innocent children. There was no outward sign of conflict until the grandchildren pointed out that there was disagreement between God's plan for order and their grandfather's actions.

If we attempt to create peace (an absence of conflict) between people of the Light and people who prefer darkness; we put ourselves into an impossible situation where we will never experience God's peaceful order. Hiding the truth about childhood sexual abuse or refusing to take a stand against it will not bring about peace. Don't confuse God's plans for peace with our plans to avoid conflict.

Today's Challenge
Are you the type of person who avoids conflict at all costs? Doing so may be costing you true peace. God may be allowing conflict in your life to teach you how to re-establish his design for order. If your life is chaotic, look to God's Word for clues about how your plans might be out of sync with his. Burying the truth about childhood sexual abuse under avoidance, overwork, or addictions will not make it go away. Make whatever changes are necessary to re-establish order according to God's ways, not yours.

God is Full of Grace

We are discussing God's character this week in an attempt to better understand why we must become like him in order to forgive others. Yesterday, we learned about mercy, which is God's goodness expressed toward people in misery or distress. Today, we will look at grace, which is God's expression of goodness toward those who deserve only punishment.

What is grace?
Webster's Dictionary defines grace as: 1) unmerited divine assistance given man for his regeneration or sanctification; 2) a virtue coming from God; and 3) a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace.

This means that God grants unearned favors to people so that they can avoid punishment. God can give us daily grace for the sins we commit, and he can give us eternal grace in place of the punishment that we deserve.

God chooses the recipients of his grace.
God freely gives his unmerited favor to those whom he chooses. He said in Exodus 33:19 (NIV): "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

We cannot work to earn grace.
The apostle Paul emphasized that grace is the opposite of human effort. God chooses some people to be recipients of his grace, while others miss out on it: At the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace. (Romans 11:5-6 NIV) In other words, we cannot earn grace through any human effort; God gets to decide who receives his free gift of grace.

Some churches teach incorrectly that we are justified by grace plus some merit of our own. Examples of this merit include confessions, hardships, penalties, or compensation that believers must pay in order to be pardoned by a priest. The Bible tells us clearly that we cannot win God's grace through any efforts such as these.

The beginning of God's grace is faith in Christ.
The Bible clearly teaches that faith in Christ is a requirement for all people who want God's grace. Paul's letter to the Roman church states, This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:22-23 NIV)

Paul's message is clear: everyone needs God's grace, because everyone sins. And the only way to get grace is to have faith in Jesus Christ.

What is faith?
Faith means that we quit relying on ourselves and trust in our heavenly Father to provide for us. It means that we quit demanding guarantees in life and start taking action, even when we aren't sure of the outcome.

For survivors of abuse who are perfectionists, faith becomes a huge challenge. Our earthly parents were not the type of people anyone would trust. If our human fathers molested us, why would we ever put our trust in a God who is called Father?

I understand this fear, because I have struggled with it for most of my life. But we cannot allow our experiences with our earthly fathers to destroy the beautiful relationship that God has in store for us. To do so allows our earthly fathers to maintain power over us.

Sadly, some women who were sexually abused make the decision that they will never trust any man, including God. Some victims choose other women as sexual partners after being victimized by men. I understand the hurt that leads to this type of behavior, but avoiding all men is not the answer, nor is homosexuality. The Bible clearly states in I Corinthians 6:9-10 (NIV):

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Trusting in God to grant us grace must come before we can forgive.
Clearly, the inability to trust in God stands as a roadblock to forgiving others. Unless we first understand and experience God's grace for ourselves, we cannot fathom how he could possibly give that gift to people who molest children or commit crimes against us.

The continuing of God's grace is through obedience to God's commands.
For most of my life, the concept of grace has stood as a roadblock to forgiveness for me. It wasn't until I met Joe that I began to understand why.

I was raised in a church which taught that grace was free to anyone if they merely believed in Christ. I knew that my father was a child molester, and my mother was an alcoholic abuser. And yet, they claimed weekly to have earned God's unmerited favor through their confession of sins at church. This just did not make sense to me.

When I married Joe, we attended a church that taught the full meaning of grace. It begins with faith, but it continues with obedience to God's commands. A light dawned for me! My parents had only figured out the first step as potential recipients of God's grace. They had never caught on to the fact that their continued disobedience to God's laws could cause them to miss out on his grace.

If we truly have faith in Christ--trust in God and not in ourselves--it produces obedience to God's commands. The Bible clearly tells us, Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. (James 2:17 NIV)

My siblings and I finally understand why our parents do not enjoy God's grace: Mom and Dad profess belief in Christ, but they are not living in obedience to God's laws. As James pointed out above, this type of faith is dead.

How do we learn to trust again so that we can receive God's grace?
We may ask how it is possible for us to ever trust someone again after being victimized by an abuser. The answer lies in the fact that God graciously gives us the Holy Spirit to empower us. Paul wrote, But by the grace of God I am what I am.(2 Cor 3:6 NIV)

For me, learning to trust again began with leaving my abusive first husband and distancing myself from my parents. It's impossible to trust anyone when every day begins with a fight for survival.

The ability to trust grew when I made the decision to dig deeper into God's Word. I began attending a church that offered Bible studies, and I spent time reading the Bible each day at home. The children and I prayed together more.

Over time, I began to trust others at church--believers in Christ who proved to be loving and supportive. As I made friends with safe people, I eventually met a couple who knew Joe. I had vowed that I would never trust another man, but Joe was different. I had never met a man with such a strong sense of commitment to protecting others from harm. For the first time in my life, I felt safe within a relationship.

When we meet someone like Joe, we get a glimpse of God's character. As we spend time with Godly people, we begin to understand God's grace. When we make mistakes and apologize, Christian friends are quick to forgive. And their love doesn't depend on our pleasing them, as it did with the abusers from our past. We learn through our relationships with other mature believers that God can be trusted and that his grace is freely offered to anyone who professes belief in Christ and obeys God's laws with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Today's Challenge
If you cannot trust in God, begin praying today that he will help you to believe in Jesus and to surrender control of your life to him. He will empower you through the Holy Spirit to have faith. Other believers can help you in your quest to experience all of God's attributes, including grace. Find a church that teaches only the Bible, and God's goodness will lead you onward.

God is Merciful

We continue this week with our series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness. Today, we learn about God's mercy and how we can apply it in our journey to forgive our enemies.

Mercy is a form of God's goodness.
God's mercy is his way of expressing his goodness to people who are in misery or distress. We can think of God's overall goodness as the broad stroke of a brush; and mercy as more specific details directed to special places in the great painting of life.

Webster's defines mercy as: 1) compassion or forbearance shown especially to an offender or one subject to one's power; 2) a blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion, or 3)compassionate treatment of those in distress.

The first definition, in my opinion, is more suitable when discussing God's grace. We will discuss that tomorrow. For now, we focus on mercy as God's way of expressing compassion to his people.

God shows compassion through divine acts of mercy.
Two blind men sought out Jesus, saying, "Have mercy on us, Son of David!" (Matthew 9:27 NIV) Jesus felt compassion for them and restored their sight.

When my daughter was two years old, I was diagnosed with stage four cancer. I cried out to God for mercy, begging him to give me more time to raise my child. He was merciful and healed me of the cancer that should have taken my life in a short time.

God comforts us when we are in distress.
God has comforted his people since the beginning of time, and he still does so today. I once moved to a strange city with a brand-new baby. God sent a minister to visit me one day when I was feeling hopeless and lonely. When I have been confined to the hospital, God has sent volunteers to pray with me and read the Bible to me. When I was injured by a drunk driver last year, he sent church members to cook meals, clean my house, and visit with me.

When children experience sexual abuse or we suffer from an unexpected trauma, God provides us with comfort. In my case, God has erased many of the details from memory to protect me from the pain of knowing that my father was not my protector, but my molester. The Lord has sent many women with beautiful spirits into my life to provide the love and nurturing that my own mother never could. Perhaps if you look back over your own life, you can see instances when God was there to comfort you.

We can offer mercy to others because God is merciful to us.
I know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of God's mercy. So, it's relatively easy for me to extend it to others. I lead a quilting ministry through our church, and we use this as our key Bible passage in all communications that accompany the quilts, which we give to terminally ill patients at local hospitals:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NIV)

God calls us to be merciful, even toward our enemies.
God expects all of us to extend mercy to others..,even our enemies. In Matthew 5:7 (NIV), Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." You may be wondering how on earth we are supposed to extend mercy to our perpetrators.

The way I look at it, the criminal justice system has done its work to punish my father for molesting my daughter. He is now in jail and will remain there for a number of years. It is not my responsibility to punish him, but to extend God's mercy to him.

At the very least, I can pray for my father's safety, asking God to have compassion on him as he struggles to adjust to living in the confines of a small space with other dangerous criminals. I wouldn't want to spend my twilight years sleeping on a thin, hard mattress or eating institutional food with armed guards hovering nearby. It breaks my heart to think of anyone living under such conditions, and most especially my own father.

Over time, the prison psychologist may invite members of the family to attend counseling sessions with my father. I would cooperate with the prison staff, provided they felt that my father was truly ready to begin working on restitution within the family.

Until then, I can send cards to encourage my father, magazine articles about God's love for him, and other long-distance messages aimed at helping him surrender his life to Christ. I would do this, not as a means of re-establishing a relationship with my father, but to extend God's mercy to him.

A word of caution
It's important to realize that there is an appropriate time and place for expressing mercy to abusers. If it is given without their first achieving a sense of genuine remorse, we could be setting ourselves up for further abuse. Please be mindful of your physical, emotional, and spiritual safety before offering mercy to violent, controlling, or abusive people. Get a qualified therapist to help you if you decide to move forward in this regard.

Today's Challenge
In your journal, list all of the ways that God has shown you mercy. Then, write down how you extend that mercy to others. List some ways that you can extend mercy to your enemy without endangering yourself.

Love One Another

As we continue with our series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness, we are learning about God's moral attributes that he shares with us. These include: goodness, love, mercy, grace, patience, holiness, peace, justice, protection, and hate for sin. Yesterday, we learned about God's goodness. Today, we look into God's love.

God's love means that God gives eternally of himself to others.
We need to understand that God's love is always given for the benefit of others. It is part of his nature, and his love brings about blessings for others.

God's love existed before the world was created, it is here now, and it will continue into eternity. Jesus prayed to God, "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world." (John 17:24 NIV)

God is himself love defined.
When we think of love, we usually come up with visions of roses, Valentine's Day cards, weddings, and other symbols of romantic feelings between men and women. This is a special type of love known in Greek as eros, which God designed for erotic attraction between the sexes.

There are two other types of love that we can find in Greek translations of the Bible. Agape is the highest and purest kind of love. It is divine love and is used to express the essential nature of God. Phileo is distinguished as brotherly love. This is seen in the naming of the city of Philadelphia, which means "the city of brotherly love."

Webster's Dictionary defines love as: unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another, as (1) the fatherly concern of God for humankind (agape); (2) brotherly concern for others (phileo); and (3) a person's adoration of God (also phileo).

We can find a very simple definition of what it means to love in I John 4:7 (NIV): Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit love one another.
We know from references in Scripture that God the Father and God the Son love one another. Even though there are no specific verses indicating that they also love the Spirit, it is implied.

When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, God's voice came from heaven to say, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:17 NIV) Jesus said to his disciples, "But the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me." (John 14:31 NIV)

This pure love between the Father, Son, and Spirit makes heaven a joyful place, because each person seeks to bring happiness to the other two. When we learn to love one another as the persons of the Trinity do, we find joy and happiness, too.

God always loves us, in spite of our sinful nature.
Unlike our romantic (eros) love that may come and go for others as we seek our mates, God's love is eternal and unconditional. In other words, he loves us forever, no matter how nicely or badly we behave.

The apostle Paul wrote, But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8 NIV) Paul also wrote, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16 NIV)

God commands us to love him and others, because it brings him joy.
We are commanded to love God first and foremost above all other people or things. In Matthew 22:37-39 (NIV) Jesus tells us, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

When we love our neighbors, it actually brings joy to God's heart. Isaiah told God's people, "The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." (Zeph. 3:17 NIV)

By imitating God's love, we can love other believers.
When we are filled with God's love, it enables us to love other believers. The apostle John wrote, "Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (I John 4:11 NIV)

When we love others, the rest of the world recognizes us for this God-like attribute. Jesus explained this when he said, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:3435 NIV)

God gives us his love to enable us to love our enemies.
If we want to forgive someone who has hurt us as deeply as abusers do, we must learn to tap into God's love. Without it, we will find it impossible to forgive.

Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..." (Matthew 5:43-44 NIV)

Remember, loving our enemies as God loves us means that we feel loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another. It can be extremely difficult for us, if not impossible, to feel any concern for a child molester. How can we pray for the good of someone who has stolen our innocence, our sense of trust in mankind, and our very souls?

The answer is that we can't love or forgive if we limit ourselves to the love we have as human beings...to phileo love. But when we tap into God's agape love, we can do the impossible. Yes, we can even find a way to love our enemies.

Learning to love takes time.
Loving an enemy is not an easy task, nor does it happen overnight. It is very difficult at this time for my family or me to feel loyal and benevolent concern for our mother's good. After she abused us all for fifty years and then refused to help anyone other than my father through the recent hearing for his criminal conduct, no one in the family feels called to reach out to her.

Sometimes, stepping back from our enemy doesn't feel like the most loving thing to do. But we have learned by experience that trying to help our mother usually comes back to sting us with further verbal abuse. At this point, we believe it is safest for us to pray for her from a distance, with the hope that she will eventually experience God's love as we do and learn how to express it to others.

Today's Challenge
In your journal, write down the differences between the love you feel for God, for your spouse, and for your neighbors. Think about your enemy and write down how much love you feel for him. Ask God to fill you with his pure love so that you can eventually find the brotherly love you need to forgive.

Practice Random Acts of Righteousness

Yesterday, we learned that righteousness means that we follow a moral code or law to keep ourselves from sin. God is himself the perfect standard for righteousness, and everything he does is right. If we want to forgive others, we must begin with an understanding of what righteous acts look like. Today, we continue with our study of righteousness in our quest to forgive people who have deeply hurt us.

If God is righteousness, we must first understand God's attributes.
God exhibits ten moral attributes that we should seek for ourselves if we want to become righteous. These moral attributes include:

1) goodness,
2) love,
3) mercy,
4) grace,
5) patience,
6) holiness,
7) peace,
8) justice,
9) protection, and
10) intense hate for all sin.

These are really big concepts, so we're going to tackle one per day.

How does the Bible define goodness?
Goodness means that God is the final standard, and all that he does is good. Good is something that God approves. When we do things that are good, we find delight in them, because God delights in them, too.

God is himself goodness defined.
We can find many passages in the Bible which indicate that God is good. For example, Jesus said, "No one is good--except God alone." (Luke 18:19 NIV) The psalmist wrote, Praise the LORD. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. (Psalm 106:1 NIV) And King David wrote, Taste and see that the LORD is good..."(Psalm 34:8 NIV)

Everything that God does is worthy of his approval.
Whatever God does is so good, it is worthy of his complete approval. For example, when God created the world, he stood back and sighed with satisfaction. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day. (Gen. 1:31 NIV)

We must be careful to make the distinction here that God's works are not worthy of our approval, but only of God's. Therefore, he is the final standard of goodness.

God has given us the ability to reflect upon his goodness so that we can evaluate things in the way that he wants us to. We can learn to approve what God approves and take delight in whatever delights him.

God is the source of all good in the world.
If anything is truly good, it comes from God. James wrote, Every good an perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17 NIV)

Sometimes, we can be deceived into believing that something evil is good. As children who suffered from sexual abuse, we may have been told that our perpetrator's sick need for sexual gratification at our expense was something good. We may have been told that we were good while we were being molested.

It is important to remember that whatever is truly good comes from God. If we are engaging in behaviors that are immoral or wrong, they cannot be labeled good. The only way to learn how to distinguish what is truly good and what is evil is to study God's Word.

I wrote in earlier posts that I had found Healing Touch to be something good for pain relief and spiritual enlightenment. But as I read more of God's Word, I discovered that the people teaching Healing Touch were doing something evil and labeling it good. Their practices began in witchcraft and other religions that are in direct opposition to the Christian faith. The only way I came to this understanding was through a thorough understanding of God's righteousness that I found in the Bible.

The apostle Paul said, "Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by contant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil." (Hebrews 5:13-14 NIV) Through a study of God's goodness, we can grow into mature Christians who can stand up to people who tempt us to do evil things and call them good.

God only does good things for his children.
Unlike our earthly fathers, God only does good things for us. We can find assurance in Romans 8:28 (NIV) that God wants to do good for us: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.


This does not mean that the minute we become Christians, all bad things will cease in our lives. There will still be times when we encounter evil, but we will better understand that even when bad things happen, God will do something to bring good from it.

To clarify this for you, God did not desire for me to be sexually abused. However, he has shown me how he plans to use my experience for good. My pain has led me to help others who share similar experiences. All over the world, people are finding comfort in the words that I share with them.

As another example, my study of Healing Touch brought me a lot of spiritual pain. I felt tremendous embarrassment over the fact that I had been duped into believing that something evil was good. However, as soon as I figured out my error, God put the wheels in motion to turn that bad experience into something good.

My minister thanked me for sharing the truth about healing touch with him; he had been looking for answers about alternative medicine for an upcoming sermon series. A fellow believer thanked me for the information, because it gave her the ammunition she needed to say no to someone who wanted her to get involved in Reiki, another type of healing which is not based in Christianity.

We should imitate God's goodness.
Whenever we can, we should do good. The apostle Paul wrote, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers." (Gal. 6:10 NIV) If it is unclear to us how to be good, we must learn that God is the one we should imitate.

God's #1 goal is for us to become more like Christ each day.
I wrote in previous blogs about developing goals for ourselves. I am learning that it is okay to have goals, provided that they help us to become more like Christ each day. When I discovered that Healing Touch was not pleasing to God, I ended all involvement in the program.

If you've been working on goals, look back over them and ask yourself, "Will this goal help me to become more like Christ each day?" If the answer is no, revise the goal or eliminate it.

You can also ask, "Does this goal reflect God's goodness, and will it develop in me the characteristic of goodness?" Sometimes, it is difficult to see the difference between a goal that makes us feel good and a goal that makes us good.

Getting even with our perpetrator through vengeful actions may make us feel good, but they will never make us good. Using alcohol, drugs, overwork, shopping, or other addictions may make us feel good temporarily, but they will never make us good in the way that God wants us to be.

Today's Challenge
In your journal, write down how you see God's goodness in your life. Is there anything that you are doing that feels good, but is really evil? If you are trapped in a habit that is not good, find an accountability partner or counselor to help you find your way out of it. Imitating God's goodness must come before we can learn how to forgive.