In my previous post, I defined forgiveness with three explanations for what it is. In this post, I want to bring more clarity by describing what forgiveness is not.

Six Things That Forgiveness is NOT…

One of the reasons so many people refuse to forgive is they think that forgiveness is more than what I’ve already described it to be. So here are the first three misunderstandings of what forgiveness is not. (More to follow).

1. Forgiveness is not forgetting

Some people think that all you have to do to forgive is just forget what happened. Maybe someone has said that to you. Just forget about it. What’s the problem? Why can’t you get over it!  

But when offended people hear this they shut down. They often say... if forgiving is contingent upon my forgetting then I can never forgive because I’ll never forget what was done to me.

The truth is...when it comes to the big hurts in life, we don’t forgive and forget. We forgive what we can’t forget.  We can forget the little offenses. It’s the big offenses that stick with us. The big offenses need something more powerful than forgetting. They need forgiveness.

2. Forgiveness is not excusing.

I’ve seen many people recoil at the thought of forgiving because they think that if they forgive it will send the message to their offender that what they did wasn’t really that bad.  This is especially true for victims of abuse and betrayal. But that’s not what forgiveness is about.

For example, God doesn’t excuse us. He doesn’t minimize what we’ve done. The Bible gives us many examples of this. Listen to what Peter said to a group of people who supported Jesus being killed...

You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead.   Acts 3:13-15

Peter’s accusation couldn’t be any stronger. Yet he still offered forgiveness…

Now, brothers and sisters, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders...Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord...Acts 3:17-19.

God’s forgiveness doesn’t excuse what we did. And neither should our forgiveness excuse others.

Two authors put it this way...

…forgiveness cancels a debt that a person legitimately owes rather than simply lets the person off the hook.  Forgiveness does not wink at the moral violation (condoning) or deny the offender’s responsibility (exoneration).  Forgiveness chooses to cancel a debt that is serious and real.  To Forgive is Human, p. 33

If you are afraid that forgiving someone will communicate the wrong thing to your offender then you need to be clear just like the Bible is clear. Outline the severity of what they did to you but let them know that you won’t hold it against them. You won’t treat them like less of a person or with any less dignity. But you may no longer trust them.

3. Forgiveness is not trusting.

This might be one of the biggest misunderstandings about forgiveness. I can forgive you immediately but trust takes time.

You've probably heard it said that forgiveness is free but trust is earned. Trust and forgiveness are mutually exclusive. That means that don't go hand-in-hand. They can, and often do, exist apart from each other.

I see this all the time with alcoholics. Let’s say parents forgive their daughter for her drunkenness and destructive lifestyle. But when the daughter comes home to visit they lock the liquor cabinet.  The daughter sees this and gets mad. She says...you said you forgave me but you locked the liquor cabinet. What hypocrites! 

No. They aren’t hypocrites. The parents understand the difference between forgiveness and trust but the daughter doesn’t. The girl broke trust with the parents. Trust needs to be rebuilt over time. But the parents can forgive immediately because, as we learned in a previous post, to forgive is simply giving up the right to get even.

In my next post I will look at three more words that forgiveness is not.

Learn more about anger and how to forgive in my book STUCK.

Question: What are some reasons you've used for not forgiving?

Read more of my articles on forgiveness here.

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