Forgiveness Talk

I gave this talk on forgiveness during a sacrament meeting in January. A few people asked me for copies, so I figured the easiest way would be to post it. This isn't exactly what I said -- I can't stick to a script for anything -- but it's what I had written down, so it should be pretty close. :) 

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When I was eleven years old, I was permanently disabled because a surgeon made a mistake while performing a procedure without consent. It took years for me to forgive that doctor, and that bitterness stole a lot of my life. I would do things that made me happy for a while, but they didn’t create lasting peace. Each time I did them, the happiness they gave me lasted for a shorter time, leaving me to repeat them over and over to keep myself from feeling worse than I did in the beginning. I didn’t see any way out of that cycle. I was angry at the doctor, at my family, and at myself. I didn’t think God existed, but if He did, I was angry at Him too. The God who other people loved had made me be born with an incurable disease and then let that doctor make it worse, and I saw no way to ever be freed from the burden of what had been done to me.

Learning of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ was the most incredible gift that I can imagine. I learned of God’s love for each of us and of my own divine worth. Through the gospel, I was miraculously able to repent of the acts I had done during my years of bitterness and be transformed. An essential part of that process was finding the strength to forgive and to be forgiven. By that point in my life, extending forgiveness didn’t require nearly as much strength as you might expect – it was truly my only option.

In Doctrine and Covenants 64, the Lord tells Joseph Smith, “I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.”

Most of us have heard that scripture before, but I would like to really examine it with you today.

According to lds.org, the word “forgive” has two meanings in the scriptures. One of those definitions will be given later in my talk. The other states, “As people forgive each other, they treat one another with Christlike love and have no bad feelings toward those who have offended them.”

Why would the Lord require us to forgive?

Extending forgiveness to another person is for us. Our forgiveness of the unrepentant sinner does not excuse him from the consequences of his sins. Rather, we are called upon to live by the oath to “Let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds.” Our forgiveness does not mean justice won’t be done; it means that we will place our trust in God to take care of that justice for us.

All of the commandments we have been given are for our benefit. The Word of Wisdom helps us to be healthy in body and mind; the Law of Chastity helps us avoid the heartache so often wrought by being involved in sacred, intimate acts outside of the bonds of marriage. Likewise, we are commanded to forgive so that we can be freed.

Withholding our forgiveness from another person is a spiritual impediment to us, regardless of its impact on another. Forgiving others is primarily about restoring our personal relationship with God, not with the person who we must forgive. By choosing to forgive, we act upon our trust in God and allow Him to take up our burdens. Finding it within myself to have that much trust in God – to wholeheartedly hand my burdens over to Him and believe in His willingness to take care of it so I could be relieved – is one of the most difficult parts of forgiveness for me, but I’ve learned that it is absolutely necessary.

A church member whose brother was murdered wrote, “I found that the solution for a weed-ridden heart is to employ the Master Gardener, the Savior Jesus Christ. He has the power to heal any heart. He requires only one thing: we must offer our hearts fully to Him and let Him work in His own way.” In our journey through life, all of us will be wounded. Bad things happen all the time. It’s easy to find ourselves being burdened down by those wounds, little by little.

The healing power of the Atonement is the means by which those wounds can be healed, and the requirement of that healing is that we trust in the Lord and forgive. That forgiveness does not redeem he who sinned against us, but it does redeem us. Emptying our hearts of bitterness and anger creates room for the purifying power of the Atonement to work within us, filling our souls with joy and consolation.

The second definition given for the word “forgive” is “When God forgives men, he cancels or sets aside a required punishment for sin. Through the atonement of Jesus Christ, forgiveness is available to all who repent.”

I hope we are all familiar with this type of forgiveness. As we follow God, each of us is asked to strive for perfection. Our ultimate goal, as the whiteboard in the institute reminds me every day, is to return to our Father’s presence. No unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God, and all of us, at some point in our lives, will be unclean. We strive for perfection, but none of us are perfect right now. The pains and sins of this world are unavoidable at this stage of our progression, and only through the atonement of Jesus Christ can we be cleansed and healed as we repent.

When I discussed this topic with the missionaries, Elder Bovee shared a thought that I’d like to quote. “Although we continually fall short and make mistakes, I am convinced that the love of our Savior and the power of his Atonement reach a depth beyond our imperfections. Through the strength of Christ’s perfect love, we can rise above our sins, no matter how serious they may be.”

There is no depth that Christ cannot reach to rescue us. There is no darkness that the light of the atonement cannot penetrate. In the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith, “There is never a time when the spirit is too old to approach God. All are within the reach of pardoning mercy.”

Obtaining forgiveness when we have sinned is not automatic. There’s no “easy button” for repentance. The offer of forgiveness is always available, as is our Father’s unfailing love, but we are asked to repent by freely confessing our sins to the Lord, making restitution, and changing our ways. Repentance can be uncomfortable, as is all change, but I testify that it is the path to lasting peace. In cases when we cannot do anything to heal the damage caused by our sins, the way to forgiveness is still open to us. The apostle Boyd K. Packer once said, “The Lord provides ways to pay our debts to Him. In one sense we ourselves may participate in an atonement. When we are willing to restore to others that which we have not taken, or heal wounds that we did not inflict, or pay a debt that we did not incur, we are emulating His part in the Atonement.” No sin is too great, no harm too irreparable, for us to receive divine forgiveness.

Perhaps even harder than forgiving others and seeking forgiveness from the Lord is forgiving ourselves. In his famous talk about judging others, President Uchtdorf reminded us, “When the Lord requires that we forgive all men, that includes forgiving ourselves. Sometimes, of all the people in the world, the one who is the hardest to forgive—as well as perhaps the one who is most in need of our forgiveness—is the person looking back at us in the mirror.”

The scriptures teach us that once we have repented and been forgiven of a sin, Heavenly Father no longer remembers that sin and it is as if it never happened. However, we do not forget our sins. The memory of our failings is retained so that we can learn from our mistakes, enabling us to progress towards our eternal goal. This does not mean that we should spend all our days in guilt – instead, we should trust in our Father in Heaven when He tells us that we’ve been forgiven. The benefit of learning from our past transgressions by remembering them is voided by excessive guilt, which can tear us further from our Heavenly Father by filling us with feelings of inadequacy.

I’d like to end this talk with another quote from President Uchtdorf: “Remember, Heaven is filled with those who have this in common: They are forgiven. And they forgive.” I testify to you that this is true. Forgiveness clears the way for broken hearts to be mended and broken people to be healed. It restores our bonds with our Heavenly Father, and it helps us to become more like Him in the exercise of true Christlike love.