You said it out loud in the car about three weeks ago. I forgive it. It is done. I am not carrying this.
And you meant it. That is the part that matters and it is the part you have started to doubt.
Because on the Thursday after, somebody mentioned his name and something went through you, hot, immediate, and exactly the same size as before.
And now there are two problems where there was one. The original thing, and the fact that you apparently cannot forgive properly, which is worse, because now it is about you.
You are not doing it wrong, and a decision made once has never once been required to change how a person feels by Thursday.
Let me separate two things that have got welded together, because I think the welding is the whole problem.
Forgiveness is a decision. It is something a person does, once, with their will, and it is complete at the moment it is made.
A feeling is a different object entirely. It arrives on its own schedule, it is not under anybody's direct control, and it does not consult the decision before showing up.
You made the decision. The feeling did not receive the memo, because feelings never do, and there is nothing in scripture anywhere that says it should have.
Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another
There is a verse in Colossians that puts two different things side by side, and almost everybody reads only the second one.
Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. (Colossians 3:13, King James Version)
Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another.
Two verbs, not one. Forgiving is the decision. Forbearing is the continuing to put up with the person while the thing is still going on.
You are inside a verse that names both the decision and the ongoing putting up with it, and having to keep forbearing has never once meant the forgiving did not happen. Colossians 3:13 says forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, and the Holy Spirit is the one who put both verbs in one line.
And notice why forbearing has to be there at all.
If forgiving ended the whole business, there would be nothing left to forbear. The verse assumes there is something ongoing after the decision, because there always is.
You have a verse that assumes something continues after the forgiving, and an ongoing difficulty has never once been evidence that the decision failed. The Holy Spirit is the one who wrote the continuing into the same sentence, and it is written in Colossians 3:13 with the two verbs in that order.
The other thing that did not change
Now let me say the thing that this site says and most places will not, and it is the practical half.
Forgiving him did not cancel the debt.
Those are two separate objects as well. One is about what is between you and God and him. The other is a sum of money for work that was done and is still owed.
Nothing in that verse or anywhere near it says that forgiving somebody means never mentioning what they owe you again.
You have released a person without releasing an invoice, and forgiving somebody has never once been the same act as writing off what they owe. The written word puts the forbearing and the forgiving together without a word about accounts, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps two different things from being collapsed into one.
And here is where I think the anger is actually coming from, and it is worth considering.
Some of that heat on Thursday is not unforgiveness at all. It is the perfectly reasonable response of a person who is still being wronged, in the present tense, right now, this week, by a thing that has not been addressed.
You cannot forgive your way out of an ongoing situation. Forgiveness handles the past. The present has to be handled by saying something.
You are feeling something about a thing that is still happening, and present tense anger about a present tense situation has never once been a failure of forgiveness. The Holy Spirit is the one who tells those two apart, and Colossians 3:13 puts the forbearing in the present tense alongside the forgiving.
One plain sentence, today
So the assignment, and it is the same one this category always gives, and for you it is the missing piece.
Send the message asking for it, today, in one plain sentence.
The work, the date, the ask. One line.
You are able to send one line and still have forgiven him, and asking for wages has never once canceled anything a person decided in a car three weeks ago. The Spirit of God is the one present in a message like that, and the written word holds the forbearing and the forgiving together without a word about the account.
And here is what usually happens to the Thursday feeling afterward, and I offer it rather than promising it.
It often goes quiet. Not because the money arrived. Because the part of you that had been trying to forgive its way out of an unaddressed situation finally got to do the thing that actually fit the situation.
You have been asking one instrument to do another instrument's work, and a decision about the past has never once been able to handle something that is still going on. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives a person the right tool, and it is written in Colossians 3:13 that both verbs were needed in the same sentence.
And if the feeling comes back on Thursday anyway, it is not evidence about you. It is Thursday.
So here is what I believe is going out over a woman who forgave it in a car and felt it again on a Thursday.
You are not doing it wrong, and a decision made once has never once been required to change how a person feels by Thursday. I am not telling you the feeling goes or that he answers well, because I do not know him and this site does not invent it. Colossians 3:13 says forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, and it is the Holy Spirit and not my sympathy who put both verbs in the same line.
And this, which is the word I actually came to say:
You have released a person without releasing an invoice, and forgiving somebody has never once been the same act as writing off what they owe. The Spirit of God keeps two different things from being collapsed into one, and it is written in Colossians 3:13 with the forbearing standing in the present tense beside the forgiving.
One line. Tomorrow morning.
Declare this over yourself
- Anger still sitting there, you have never once been evidence that I forgave it wrong. Colossians 3:13 says forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, so by the Holy Spirit I send one plain line in the morning, in the name of Jesus.
- Shame about the anger, you were never deserved. The written word puts the forbearing in the present tense beside the forgiving, and by the Holy Spirit I ask for what I am owed as somebody who has already forgiven him.
- Father, You put two verbs in one line because the deciding and the continuing are not the same work. Your word says even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye, so by Your Spirit I stop asking one thing to do the work of two.
Colossians 3:13
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