The following excerpt is taken from pages 113-117 of Dr. Andrew Butterworth’s book: “I’m Sick, Now What?”
Even if you don’t feel you need to forgive anyone, go through the first step and God may surprise you.
This is the method that I have found to consistently work. While I’ll demonstrate a trivial example to show how God cares about forgiving even the small things, I have used this method successfully with people who have gone through the most horrific of circumstances. The freedom, however, isn’t in the method but in the heart-level forgiveness. If you have found a different way to do it, great! If you haven’t, then why not try this approach? Some people may find it helpful to have a friend present as you go through this process.
Step A: Setting the Scene
· Choose a place where you won’t be disturbed.
· Choose a moment when you will not be interrupted.
· Turn off your cell phone.
· Grab a pen, paper, and a willing heart to respond to God.
Step B: Discover Who You Need to Forgive
· Take a blank piece of paper.
· Ask God to bring to mind those whom you need to forgive.
· It can be helpful to divide the paper into “childhood”, “teen-age years”, “twenties”, etc. if you haven’t completed this step before.
· Write down the names of the people (or groups of people) that come to mind, even if you don’t feel as though you need to forgive them or feel as though you have already forgiven them. For some people it will be obvious whom you need to forgive, but for others you may be surprised whom the Holy Spirit brings to mind. When I did this exercise, one of the people the Holy Spirit brought to mind was a classmate from my middle school whom I rarely thought about. But when I did reflect on it, I realized I couldn’t help having negative feeling whenever something reminded me of him, and I realized that the Holy Spirit probably knew what was going on in my heart far better than I did.
Step C: Identify the Specific Situations
· Choose one of the easiest people first write that person’s name down on the top of a piece of paper.
· Ask God to bring to mind the specific instances that you need to forgive.
· Write down the situations that come to mind and be as specific as possible, e.g. “the time when they said ___ or did ___.”
· When you have your list, ask God to five you the strength to forgive.
Note: It is in forgiving the specifics that we forgive well. Saying, “I forgive ___ for everything they did to me” has, in practice, proven far less penetrating than taking the time to forgive specific incidents where the people hurt you. With my example of the middle school classmate, I followed the process and asked the Holy Spirit about the specifics, and I was reminded of an incident when we had identical pens. He broke his and switched his with mine. I didn’t do anything about it at the time because he was the class bully, but the injustice of it quietly gnawed at me for a time.
Step D: The Forgiveness Prayer
· Take the first instance on your list.
· Try to remember the pain of the situation. See the sin committed against you for what it was – don’t minimize it or underplay what happened.
· When you feel you are ready, declare out loud: “I choose to forgive ___ for (state the specific instance)”. Make sure you say words like, “I choose to forgive”. I have had people pray prayer like, “God please help me to forgive…” While that is fine, it isn’t actually forgiving. Forgiveness is a choice we make. So I always encourage them by saying, “Great prayer, now proceed to the next step and say, ‘I choose to forgive…’”
· Once you have done this, cross off the instance on the paper.
· Repeat with the next instance until all the instances have been crossed off.
· Don’t rush; go at a pace that suits you. If it brings up a lot of emotions, pause and ask God for strength, then carry on.
· When you have crossed off everything on your list, ask the Holy Spirit if there are any more instances.
· If there are, write them down and repeat the process for these ones until you feel there is nothing left that God wants you to forgive.
Step E: Double-Checking Heart-Level Forgiveness
· When you think you have forgiven every instance, close your eyes and picture the person. What emotions or thoughts come to mind when you think of the person?
· Write down the feelings that come to mind. (Be honest with yourself. Sometimes we try to manufacture the right feelings, but it is better to get the honest feelings.)
· If you have forgiven fully, you should start to feel the same way about the person that God does: this could be sadness about the person’s sin and sadness about what has happened, but also some love for them, wanting them to connect better with God.
· If you still have some negative feelings, go back to Step C and see what other things you need to forgive. (You may need to be more specific if you have been too general.)
· Once your feelings come into line with how you’d expect God to feel about them, double-check your heart by choosing to pray for the person.
· Pray for the person to connect with God and, if he or she is not a believer, to become a believer. If there is still reticence in your prayer it is likely that you still have things to forgive and you should go back to Step C.
· Once you have completed this repeat the process for everyone on your list. It is ok if you don’t finish this all in one go, but make sure you plan a time to go back and finish. Remember, the effects of forgiveness only kick in when you actually forgive!
· What you have just done is show mercy instead of demanding justice. The reason that I suggest praying for the people you forgave is that as followers of Jesus we have the privilege of stepping beyond mercy – rather than just not giving people what they deserve, we get to give people things they don’t deserve. This is grace. A first step in giving people grace is to pray for them. Jesus told us to pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44), and the person you have just forgiven, has, in effect been your enemy. You will know you have really forgiven from your heart when you are able to pray for that person’s good.