Bitterness with Dad

Learn more at: visionaryfam.com Now, it's not that easy though. My biggest struggle with forgiveness in my life had to do with my dad. My parents got divorced when I was 15 years old and the straws that broke the camel's back after 18 years of marriage is my dad had extra relationships outside the marriage that he was unrepentant over and so that blew things up and my parents got divorced and I had some well meaning Christian friends who encouraged me at the time, well Rob, you just need to forgive them. You need to forgive your dad for what he's done.

Now, is that good advice or bad advice? That's good advice. It's truth. Good biblical Christian advice. You need to forgive him. The problem was that I felt like, felt like it was very superficial. I also felt it was very pat-answery. I don't know if that's a word, but it just… What it felt to me like they were saying, is you see down in your heart you've got these little light switches: anger, bitterness, hatred, resentment. And you see what you do as a Christian is you just go down there wherever there is and you just turn those off. You see, I'm just not going to be angry anymore. Not gonna be bitter. Not gonna be resentful. Just give it to Jesus and there we go. Now, I know that nobody was saying that to me, it just felt like that's what I was was supposed to do.

Turns out, that I mean, I had my pastor, who had to walk me through what I want to walk you through this morning. It’s going to be a very brief crash course on a biblical process of forgiveness. No superficial things here. No pat answers here. People get confused about what forgiveness means. Sometimes people will say to me, you know, Rob I think I can try to forgive this person, but I can never trust them again. That's okay. That makes sense. You can completely forgive someone without ever trusting them again. You can completely forgive someone, ask God to heal you of all the anger and bitterness and resentment in your life and have boundaries up in your life to keep a toxic person out. You can forgive an employee who embezzled money and still fire them.

You see that? God can set you free of anger bitterness and resentment in your life toward them, but you can still have boundaries and consequences in your life. I can forgive my son or daughter for disobeying me and I can still give them a consequence. Also forgiving someone doesn't mean having warm fuzzies for them. It doesn't mean you just because you forgive somebody doesn't mean you're going to like them. Did you know there's no commandment in the Bible that says you have to like anybody? Not a single one. “Like” are warm feelings you have for nice people. If you're nice to me, I will like you. If I'm nice to you, you’ll like me. If you're mean to me, I won't like you. Now, unfortunately, I have to love you. Grr! Let me patient and kind — that I am commanded to do.

That's why love is so hard. God says you have to love people you don't like. But He never commands you to “like” anybody because you're not going to have warm feelings for toxic, abusive people in your life.

Resources:

visionaryfam.com
shop.visionaryfam.com

visionaryfam.com/parenting
visionaryfam.com/marriage
Visionaryfam.com/nevertoolate

Follow Us:

facebook.com/visionaryfam
instagram.com/visionaryfamilyministries
twitter.com/visionaryfam

#family
#parenting
#marriage
#visionaryfamily
#visionaryparenting
#visionarymarriage
#nevertoolate
#notsoperfectmom

@amyvfm @d6family