The Christmas season is associated with forgiveness. Many of the countless Hallmark Christmas movies have themes of forgiveness. When you’re surrounded by so many messages of forgiveness coupled with gushy sentimentality, you start considering forgiveness as a good idea.
Forgiveness is not just a good idea, it’s a great one. The problem with all the forgiveness going on during this time of year is ‘the motivation for forgiveness.‘
When you’re surrounded with messages about forgiving, its’ a form of peer pressure. At those moments you feel compelled to forgive based on guilt and obligation.
I’ve even encountered those who state you’re required to forgive. I understand where you’re coming from. I do have some concerns about forgiving. Forgiveness based on the obligation is insincere and mechanical. The obligation of forgiving is about ritual more than forgiving.
There’s a time and place for obligatory forgiveness, which I’ll have to address in a future email. Suffice it to say when the obligation is driving premature forgiveness, it’s not a good thing.
Premature forgiveness halts deep-level healing. With premature forgiveness, you give forgiveness without even having a clear idea what the object of the forgiveness is.
This is the first stage of forgiveness when you know you should forgive, but don’t have all the information. It would be like if someone gave you a jigsaw puzzle and said “forgive me” then walked away.
You’d be standing there with this big puzzle and no idea what it’s supposed to look like when its’ finished.
It’s important that you have a clear idea of what you’re forgiving. If you’re forgiving before you know what you’re forgiving, it could be premature.
If you’re forgiving based on being put on a guilt trip, it could be premature.
If you’re forgiving based on peer pressure, it could be premature.
When it comes to forgiveness, especially related to affairs, your motivation is important. Your motivation for forgiving makes a difference in the outcome.
Genuine forgiveness brings healing and real change, while premature stuff only brings momentary relief and temporary change. If you want to get to the root of things and see real transformation, make sure your motivation is coming from a good place.
If you want to know more about forgiveness, consider the video “Forgiveness: Heal the Pain, tear down the walls and remove the obstacles”. In the video, I take you through the forgiveness process step by step.
Instead of doing it according to the role modeling in the Hallmark Christmas movies, you can instead know how to generate genuine forgiveness. Forgiveness is too important to settle for cheap substitutes that only provide temporary relief.
You can know when to forgive and when not to. You can know the difference between repentance and the cheater just going through the motions of asking for forgiveness. Not knowing what to look for can lead you into making some costly relationship mistakes.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
