Forgiveness: What’s In It For You

“The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less.” – Eldridge Cleaver

Dearest Chanmi and Joomi,

Forgiveness is costly. Every person at some point in their life will come to understand this all too well. I personally like Beyonce’s definition of forgiveness: “Forgiveness is me giving up the right to hurt you for hurting me,” she says in her Lemonade album. To absorb a devastating loss is not easy to do. Our pain leaves scars. Letting go of our right to exact payment from someone who is responsible for obliterating your life may seem impossible to do. That is, until you consider the flip side. The cost of forgiveness might be considerable, but the cost of unforgiveness is worse.

Eldridge Cleaver was a political activist and one of the early leaders of the Black Panther party. He was also an embittered man whose hate manifested in horrifying hate crimes. He recounts them in Soul on Ice, a book he wrote from his prison cell. It was a book that changed my life.

In Soul and Ice, he chronicles the path that hate led him down, through dark corridors of revenge, which he often takes out on innocent women. It was his way of leveling the playing field, his own pursuit of justice. He thought it would make himself feel better. It didn’t. His hate crimes debased him until he no longer recognized himself as a man. When all of the dust settled, the only dross that remained was hate – hatred for himself. All of his collective thoughts and wisdom finally culminated into a singular profound truth, and my favorite quote of all time: “The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less.”

The biblical teachings of Sunday school emphasizes forgiveness, too. God forgave us; we should forgive others. But I have to admit that forgiveness became a much more compelling pursuit once I grasped what I personally stood to lose if I didn’t. Since that fateful day I came across Cleaver’s book in an undergrad sociology class, it’s been easier to choose the route of forgiveness, because nothing is as instinctive as loving oneself. It’s just that the connection between forgiving an offender and loving oneself isn’t an obvious one to draw.

People often say the best way to learn is by making mistakes. I beg to differ. The best way to learn is through the mistakes of others. Life is too short to learn every lesson through your own mistakes. Try to learn them through the mistakes others have already made. Learn them from stories and books. It will save you unnecessary grief.

So am I saying that your motivation for forgiveness should be purely selfish? No, I’m not. But forgiving a perpetrator because you love yourself and forgiving someone because Christ forgave you, are not binary.

[The Real Reason You Should Forgive]

There is an overarching theme in the Bible that gets overlooked on Sunday podiums. What God asks us to do for our brothers and sisters also has our best interest at heart. In all of the seemingly antiquated, impossible, uncomfortable, inconvenient things God asks us to do, he does also, perhaps most supremely, because it’s what is best for us – perhaps not in the immediate moment, but for our everlasting soul. Remember, he asks us to love our enemy, as ourselves. Not love your enemy. Period. And hate yourself, or disrespect yourself, or be trampled on like a doormat. No, love your enemy, as yourself. What you stand to gain by forgiving is your soul intact in a more radiant version. Also, don’t forget that God will avenge. He will defend your cause. Vengeance belongs to the Lord because only God can avenge without turning you evil.

When your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat. In doing so you will heap burning coals on his head.

So, say your piece. Confront your perpetrator. Let him or her know how they have wronged and hurt you. Confront them with witnesses if you have to. Give them the chance to consider their wrong. Give them a chance to apologize. Make it known to their face such crimes are heinous. And then place justice in the appointed hands, whether it’s law enforcement or a court of law. Then refrain from taking justice into your own hands. Don’t throw a punch at them (unless they threw one first). Don’t trash their reputation. Walking away this way is not to be mistaken for being a doormat. No, not by a long shot. Instead, by leaving room for God’s vengeance, you will heap burning coals on their head and God will defend your cause in a much more dignified way that won’t require you to compromise an ounce of your integrity. Let them remain scum. Don’t let them taint you in the process.

[The Most Overlooked Word in the Bible: Yourself]

Forgiveness cost Jesus everything. His relationship with the Father was severed. His body broken. His soul crushed. God asks us to forgive those for whom Christ died because he paid the costliest price. But he also asks us to forgive because only in granting forgiveness can we be remain whole enough to love others and ourself.

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