Did you have a rotten father? Me too! And my kids had a rotten father as well.
Apparently, rotten fathers are pretty common fixtures in American families. This video was posted by a fellow comedian on Facebook along with his testimony about his own rotten father. The video is Wayne Dyer telling Bonnie Hunt about his rotten father after she talked about her rotten father. You can watch it if you want to but the gist of it is: “Forgiving people is good for you.”
Before you launch your angry comments at me, I want to clearly state that I agree with Dyer about forgiveness. It is essential to living life with any chance of peace, happiness, or purpose. True forgiveness is the primary ingredient of a tender heart. If you cannot forgive, you cannot love. Now, get ready to launch those angry comments! Everything else I say from this point on can be easily misinterpreted as arrogant, victim-blaming, hate speech. Here we go!
Dyer isn’t telling the whole story. He’s ignoring the most important aspect of forgiveness. Listening to Dyer, you get the idea that forgiveness is a magic spell that you cast to take away anger and sadness. Forgive your awful father and the universe rewards you with goodness and joy. The problem is, Dyer (and you) don’t actually have the power to forgiven anyone. You are both awful people too. You used up all the forgiveness on yourself. There is nothing left for the awful people around you.
Think of forgiveness like having a carton of eggs. Along comes an awful person who steals two of your eggs and eats them (hard-boiled with a hint of pepper). This betrayal hurts you deeply. The pain is made worse when the wound comes from a person who’s supposed to love you. If the wound ever heals, it’s going to leave you with a nasty scar.
Along comes Wayne Dyer and he tells Bonnie Hunt (while you’re eavesdropping) that his eggs were stolen by his awful father. But one day, at his father’s grave, Wayne decided to just let it go. He forgave the stolen eggs and absolved his father for the thievery. Hooray! That’s great! But Dyer is ignoring the crucial character who’s making his forgiveness possible – the chicken.
You (and Dwayne) can’t make eggs yourself. Every egg in your carton comes from a source other than you. Your eggs, quite literally, are stolen from the chicken. When an awful person steals your eggs, they’re just doing what you did first. You can’t forgive anyone for stealing your stolen eggs. Only the chicken can do that.
Jesus is the chicken. When He died on the cross, He opened up the coop and said, “Take all the eggs you need.” Without the chicken, you have no eggs. It is only because of Christ that forgiveness is possible. Eggs don’t magically exist in the universe without a source. Neither does forgiveness.
While I agree with Dyer about the effects of forgiveness, I think it’s important to give credit where it’s due. His life changing experience by the grave of his father wasn’t a gift from “the universe”. Forgiveness is a gift from Jesus.
One Response
Dear John,
I can’t eat eggs with a hint of pepper (burns my mouth), I must have salt (Himalayan preferred). Please forgive me.
I didn’t listen to Dyer (a bit too New Age-y for me, I’ve heard all the Dyer news).
Life hurts, it’s inevitable. Fallen world, fallen people – all of us. In every instance in my life, Jesus shows me how to live, how to cope, how to suffer, how to pray… and how to be merciful: to others, and (more difficult) to myself.
Forgiveness is hard; especially when just starting out learning how. It gets “smoother” the more you do it, but I’m guessing, for me, there will always be pain within me in the process. Jesus was in extreme pain while forgiving, so was St. Stephen, and all of God’s Children. There is no waiting until the pain goes away, no healing process that takes place first before you can forgive: forgiveness IS the healing. If emotions and pain are too strong, forgiving not from a place of feeling, but doing it as an act of the will, is a profound and powerful act. This is not a feel-good, snuggly, comforting nice thing to do, this is an Olympian act of the will.
“Out of my own free will, I choose to forgive _______. Not because I feel like it, but because my Lord Jesus Christ asks me to. I do it out of love and obedience to my King and Saviour. Please grant me Your grace and strength to forgive as You do, my Lord Jesus Christ. Thank You, for forgiving me. I love You.”