Put Down that Axe!

By Zheng Qi-ying

To forgive is to submit your right of retaliation to the sovereignty of the Lord.

Recently I read a book called Fifteen Principles for Achieving Happiness by Dr.0 Archibald Hart, principal of the Fuller Institute of Psychology. One of the principles he listed is forgiveness. Based on his personal experience and his years of experience as a counselor Dr. Hart discovered that those who refuse to forgive never achieve happiness.

An Unforgiving Grandmother

Dr. Hart grew up in a small gold-mining town in South Africa. The town was built on piles of rocks from mine tailings which the children used to play on. Every Sunday, everybody went to Sunday school in a little church, but the children were so used to running wild out-of-doors that it was a tough job to keep everyone quiet in class.

There were two Sunday school teachers, both of them elderly ladies. One was a good friend of Hart's mother and the other was Auntie Jo, who was very close to Hart. He often called her his second mother.

Auntie Jo was a kindly person, teaching with patience and love. She never lost her temper. No matter how noisy the kids became, she was always able to find a way to calm them down. Everybody loved her. From his first Sunday school attendance at four to his acceptance of the Lord as an adolescent, Hart had been under the strong influence of Auntie Jo.

When Hart was seventeen, his grandmother died of cancer. Then his mother told him a shocking story. When Hart's great grandfather died, Grandmother expected that her father would have passed their family treasures on to her. But when they read his will, they discovered that he had bequeathed the family heirlooms to her younger sister instead. So she vowed she would never speak to her sister again and she even forbade her children to speak to her.

Indeed, for the rest of her life, grandmother never did speak to her sister again. Then Hart learned that his grandmother's younger sister was none other than Auntie Jo. To avoid damaging the relationship between him and his grandmother, Auntie Jo had never told him that she was actually his great-aunt.

This story really shocked Hart. He had difficulty understanding why his loving and pious Christian grandmother, all because of a bit of family property, had never been able to forgive her own sister but had carried this grudge to her grave. Later Hart studied psychology and, through his years of psychological counseling, he realized that his grandmother was by no means the only one who has carried unforgiveness to the grave.

He recalled that his grandmother was not a happy person. Her unhappiness was directly related to the hatred that had lain buried within her for so long. Her wounded memory had so damaged her soul that in her eyes most of the people around her had dark motives or were plotting against her. Not only had hatred ruined her health, it had also weakened her spirit.

Not Easy

The key to freeing ourselves from this kind of malice and resentment so that joy and peace may be restored in us, is forgiveness.

The idea of forgiveness does not exist in worldly psychology. For fallen man, revenge overshadows forgiveness. Some people try to forget rather than to forgive. But real experience tells us that a man can never forget his hurt if he does not first forgive.

For believers, forgiveness is our Lord's command. The Lord said: "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." Nevertheless, to forgive is no easy task for someone who has been badly hurt.

Dr. Hart recalled that when he was about twenty years of age one of his missionary friends had occasion to share with a group of Afro-Americans about forgiveness before he left for his overseas ministry. For a long time these people had lived under the oppression of whites, suffering many inequalities. How did the missionary manage to lead them to forgive those who had caused them such tremendous pain for generations?

The missionary asked them to try to visualize Jesus's sufferings on the cross: the crown of thorns, the nail prints on his hands and feet, his bleeding side; how he shouldered the sins of the world and even God forsook him. For the sinless God, was any of this fair? In the end, the missionary gave this definition to the word forgiveness: Toforgive is to submit your right of retaliation to the sovereignty of the Lord.

Two steps

This definition of forgiveness outlines two steps in achieving true forgiveness:

Firstly, you have the right to feel the pain and the right too to counter-attack the one who has hurt you. Very often we express forgiveness by denying our hurts. But this is wrong. Pain is a real feeling. For this reason, Dr. Hart offered five suggestions:

1. Do not transfer your anger to a different place. Let it stay where it belongs.

2. Do not underestimate your feelings of hurt. They will not just disappear.

3. Do not try to forgive instantly and make peace. This will only cause more pain.

4. Do not try to forget your wounds by swallowing your pain and disappointment. Forgiveness comes before forgetting.

5. Do not try to suppress your wounds. Experience your wounds thoroughly, until you have learned that forgiveness is the only way out.

Secondly, when you have come to a complete understanding of your suffering and are clearly aware of your right to feel what you feel, you can submit your right to the Lord's sovereignty just as Christ did on the cross. Give it up! For your own sake, lay down the axe you have lifted up. Anger is our natural response. It can destroy our souls and needs no conscious decision on our part. But forgiveness is an act of the mind. It is a conscious decision, made with the Lord's help.

It is not easy to forgive. As long as we are willing to follow Christ's example, however, we will gradually discover that forgiveness brings miracles. Eventually, forgiveness brings in a peace which beyond words and a joy which wells up from the depths of our hearts.

Weekly training

The following is an exercise which Dr. Hart recommends. The purpose of the exercise is to achieve happiness through forgiveness. It is a weekly exercise:

Sunday-forgive yourself. Anger toward oneself is often stronger than anger toward others and it often destroys happiness.

Monday-Think about every member of your family and forgive any one of them who has hurt you.

Tuesday-Think about every one of your relatives, including those who have already passed away, and forgive any one of them who has hurt you.

Wednesday-Forgive your friends and neighbors if they have offended you.

Thursday-Forgive your colleagues, classmates and members of any organization you go to if they have offended you.

Friday-Forgive companies, governments or other institutions where you used to work if they have hurt you, intentionally or unintentionally.

Saturday-Thank the Lord who has given you the courage to forgive in Christ. Confess that you have sinned against him and ask for the Lord's forgiveness.

Material for this article comes from 15 Principles For Achieving Happiness, by Dr. Archibald Hart, Word Publishing House, 1988.