I was angry at my parents, and at my dad especially, for the dysfunction in our family. Life in our home consisted of calm periods that were inevitably interrupted by their ongoing fights, which were cold, contemptuous, and emotionally violent, erupting like a sudden squall on a spring day. It was like living in a minefield; you never knew when an explosion was coming. And my dad lived mainly in his study, in his blue chair, with his back literally turned toward the rest of us. I concluded that there must be something wrong with me, but something that I could fix and make better. That I could make my dad want to be near me. That I could make my parents’ marriage and our family better. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. I couldn’t perform well enough to make my own life—let alone my relationship with my dad or my parents’ marriage—click. I ended up trying to soothe the anger, confusion, and shame I felt about my family and myself through relationships with women. But my heart was too full of unforgiveness and violence to be in a whole, healthy relationship.
In the midst of all my anger, the Holy Spirit led me to a simple epiphany: I could forgive. Honestly, the thought had never occurred to me. I thought, rather, that because of how my father had behaved, I had to be angry and sullen and depressed until I figured out how to get him to make amends, or until I could get control over my pain, anger, and insecurity. Unforgiveness generally expresses itself as an attempt to control—to control others or our own emotions or the world around us. But this is not the path of surrender that Jesus calls us into. Jesus calls us to surrender control, which is what “laying down our lives” is always about.
At a Christian character training, a facilitator asked me: “So you can’t forgive your dad until he makes everything up to you?” Suddenly, the floodlights went on. Just because someone has done A doesn’t mean I have to do B. I am free to respond however I choose, because Jesus has created me to be free and responsible. It may not be easy, but I can choose, with my will and by the grace of God, to respond in a new way.
The essence of spiritual life is leaving behind our base, automatic responses and learning to make mature, aware choices. It’s about interrupting the egotistic instincts of our “animal brain,” what Paul calls “life in the flesh,” and entering into the way of God, or “life in the Spirit.”[1] This is why we need habits that undercut a life of overstimulation and over-tiredness; when we are worn out, it’s much harder to transcend our automatic, animalistic responses.[2] But beyond The Slow Life, we enter “life in the Spirit” through The Grounded Life and The Generous Life, which we can only enter through the practice of forgiveness—and forgiveness will certainly not feel like an automatic response.
The Holy Spirit was leading me, as he leads all of us, into the way of Jesus. This is exactly what the crucifixion and resurrection are all about: Jesus breaks the cycle of violence by throwing himself into the machinery of it so that he can free us from it. By refusing to take violence into his own hands (though he could have, as he pointed out), Jesus opens the way of God to us.[3] Without this new pattern and the grace and power to walk in it, we will simply cycle through violence—done to ourselves and done to others—again and again. Only forgiveness can break the cycles of violence. As theologian Miroslav Volf says, “To triumph fully, evil needs two victories, not one. The first victory happens when an evil deed is perpetrated; the second victory, when evil is returned. After the first victory, evil would die if the second victory did not infuse it with new life.”[4]
Life can turn on a dime, and this moment radically changed me. I forgave my dad. Immediately, my years-long depression began to slacken. Only then did I realize that the very thing I judged about my dad—his emotional distance—had been created in me because of my unforgiveness! My anger and depression certainly pushed me away from many of my friends and loved ones and away from the women I struggled to connect with. I was living out the very thing that I judged in my dad. By refusing to let go, I had tethered myself to the very thing I didn’t want.
I can’t say that forgiveness was, in this case, one-and-done. I think it seldom is. But the choice to forgive is like a tow truck that pulls our hearts up out of the valley and over the hill, even if the journey still has miles more to go. Or, to use a different metaphor: you may still have to work the garden of your own heart, but the land will remain an arid desert without forgiveness.
As you think about your life, do you find rocks of unforgiveness in the soil of your heart? Whom do you find it difficult to forgive? And what might unforgiveness be costing you? Indeed, unforgiveness always costs us, and Jesus means to lead us to abundance and to freedom, even if the path is steep, and even if the path lies within our own self.
For all of these readings in one place, order my book 'Learning to Live and Love Like Jesus.'
[1] See Romans 8:1-39. Life in the flesh is about my survival and is full of insecurity, anger, and jealousy. Life in the Spirit ceases to be a small story about my own self. It’s about participating in the life of God, whose life holds our very survival, such that we can stop worrying and become free to truly live.
[2] “Between stimulus and response lies a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.” This quote is often attributed to psychologist and concentration camp survivor Victor Frankl, though attribution is difficult to nail down. Stephen Covey is responsible for its wide dissemination and for linking it to Frankl. For more on Frankl’s work, see Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frank. Beacon Press. Boston, MA. 2006.
[3] See Matthew 26:53.
[4] Volf, Miroslav. The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Grand Rapids, MI, 2006. Page 9.
