The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object.
It is better to forget about yourself altogether.
A friend is struggling to forgive herself. She repented of her sin. She confessed it to God and to the person she hurt. The two forgave her. My friend did the job right. But months later, she just can’t forgive herself.
Maybe that’s as it should be. Because maybe the problem isn’t a forgiveness problem, but a pride problem. Before you call me cold-blooded and calloused, let me explain.
Proudly Pre-Occupied With Our Sin
The humble, forgiven saint doesn’t get hung up scratching that itch. He can let it sit. When the boys were younger and would scratch mosquito bites until they bled, I would dab on the Benedryl and distract them with toy to keep their little hands busy. They stopped scratching. The focus was off the bug bite.
Self-degradation, self-demotion, and self-condemnation all come when the show is on the other less-fortunate foot…Why would we want others to see these things? Ironically, self-demotion can be a sneaky form of self-promotion because we’re actually fishing for the affirmation and reassurance we believe we deserve…Self-condemnation passes judgment on us when we fall short of our own standards. Sometimes we carry out the painful judgment on ourselves. We can mentally replay poor performance in order to beat ourselves up over our failures. Self-condemnation…feels shame for falling short. (Killjoys, p. 11)
I don’t mean to be cavalier here. I know it’s no cake walk, accepting forgiveness and moving on. I’ve been there. I’ve spent plenty of nights at Camp Woe-Is-Me and never once have I had a good night’s sleep there. Sometimes after I repent of the selfish, stupid things I’ve said or done, and I don’t feel instantly refreshed (Acts 3:19). So I wallow in my guilt for a while, astounded that I could think, say, or do such ugly things; that conduct so un-becoming a Christian came from moi. I was, as Lewis aptly put it, sorry to find that I was the sort of [wo]man who did those things.
Why We’re Confused
But our feelings confuse us. We think that if we’re still feeling bad we need more forgiveness. Could it be we need more grace, more faith, to keep the humble tent pitched there where it belongs? Maybe we should pray,
Forgiven Like David
David is a marvelous model of how to humbly accept forgiveness and consequences. After Nathan’s confrontational, convicting you-are-the man sheep speech, David and Bathsheba’s borne-of-wedlock baby dies. David’s servants are confused when, rather than weep and wallow, he rises from his mourning and, worships. He explained, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said,‘Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ 2 Samuel 12:22
When David sinned, he repented. When he repented, he was forgiven. But, still he was disciplined. David might have felt unforgiven, but lying in the bed he made for himself, but he wasn’t trying to forgive himself. He did not grovel under it or spurn it. He didn’t despair nor express entitlement.
David? He did the right thing. David humbly hoped in God’s goodness. He camped right under God’s mighty hand, and accepted God’s mercy and his consequences.
Godly Grief
For you felt a godly grief so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. 2 Corinthians 7:10
So, Should We Learn To “Forgive Ourselves?” The Corinthians were at fault and Paul had called them out. They had repented and he had forgiven them. But they maybe hadn’t moved on yet. Maybe they just didn’t feel forgiven. John Piper believes 2 Corinthians 7:8–10 is the closest biblical paradigm for dealing with this issue.
Ponder what Paul means by godly grief and worldly grief…They need to move through worldly grief over sin to godly grief over sin and beyond into life and freedom. And the difference is a grief that leads out of death-giving self-condemnation to life-giving acceptance of God’s, and in this case Paul’s, statement of no condemnation.
So the biblical way out of death with this so-called self-forgiveness is to humble ourselves and admit we have no right to take the role of judge and pronounce the death sentence on ourselves. That is pride to think that we can hear God’s verdict of not guilty or our friend’s verdict of not guilty; that is, I forgive you, and refuse it. We refuse it and set ourselves up as the new judge and pronounce a death sentence over ourselves. The biblical problem with that is not a failure of self-forgiveness. That is not a biblical category. It is an arrogant failure to trust in the free verdict of God: no condemnation.
No, I didn’t help my friend forgive herself. Instead, I say to her, and to you, and to myself: Let’s go pitch our tent in that humble place, under God’s, mighty, merciful hand. Let’s cast our cares, even our post-confession, not-feeling forgiven cares on Him.
He really does care.
Here we have a firm foundation, Here the refuge of the lost.
Christ the Rock of our salvation, Christ the Name of which we boast.
Lamb of God for sinners wounded! Sacrifice to cancel guilt!
None shall ever be confounded, Who on Him their hope have built.
Stricken, Smitten, & Afflicted, by Thomas Kelley
