Forgive And Forget?

I had a friend whose wife cheated on him multiple times. He tried to keep the marriage together as long as he could, but in the end, he could not tolerate the ongoing sin and ended the marriage.

But things did not get easier. There was fallout with family and friends. He developed trust issues with people and struggled with the rejection he felt from his wife’s repeated adultery. Relationship hardships especially have a lasting effect.

Well-meaning people would tell my friend, “You have to forgive and forget.”

I’ve had people intentionally and unintentionally hurt me. You have too. We all have.

And I’ve also had people tell me, “Just forgive and forget.” But honestly, that’s impossible for us as humans. The forgetting part, that is.

Yes, forgive. To forgive is to let go. To release the offense, cancel the debt, and expect nothing from them to make it better.

You can do that. In fact, as Christians, we are commanded to do that. To be Christian is to forgive because of God’s forgiveness. To refuse forgiveness is antithetical to our Christian profession.

But forgetting is another matter. You have control over forgiving, but you don’t have control over forgetting. God can choose to forget our sins (Isaiah 43:25 and Hebrews 8:25), but we don’t have that capacity.

You can, however, choose to do something better. Once you’ve chosen forgiveness, you can also choose to trust God for the good He will bring from the wrong done to you (Genesis 50:20).

And that is God’s promise: “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (Romans 8:28 NLT).

The Lord does not promise that everything that happens to us will be good. Cancer is not good. Divorce is not good. War is not good. Abuse is not good. A lot of things we face in life are evil or come from evil.

But the Lord does promise to turn the evil done to us for good. And it takes faith on our part to believe that, activating this promise.

Once we choose to forgive and look for the good that God will bring from it, we can begin to see the lessons He taught us through that harm, as well as opportunities we otherwise wouldn’t have had. And I’ve learned that in the worst of things done to me, God has been there. Looking to Him in and through it brings me closer to Him in every way.

You may not be able to forget the wrong someone did to you. But you can rely on God to help you forgive and then see how He will bring good out of your hurt.