Forgiveness:
Essential Key to Lasting Friendships
Be Tough Enough to Forgive
PURPOSE:
By the end of this lesson, I want my students to understand
forgiveness and to be motivated to practice it.
RELATED
RESOURCES: See
overhead and
student handout.
QUOTES:
To put on blackboard or overhead.
"Even
in technical lines such as engineering, about 15% of one's financial success
is due to one's technical knowledge, and about 85% is due to skill in human
engineering - to personality and the ability to lead people."
"The
ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee.
And I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the
sun." (John D. Rockefeller,
famous
American businessman and philanthropist)
I.
Getting Motivated...
Discussion:
In small groups, discuss why it's important to learn
relational skills (in friendships, family, work, school). (Have group
leaders report their ideas to the entire group. You may keep them seated in
small groups for the next discussion as well.)
If
you think about it, the quality of our relationships in life determines much of
our happiness. A vacation to a plush resort can turn into World War
III
if the relationships fall apart. Some of you know exactly what I mean!
In fact, your relational skills may be your most important
qualifications for that job you’re dying to land.
Look
at the two quotes I've put on the board. Do you agree with the first one? Why do
you think Rockefeller paid so much for people with relational skills?
I’m
not just talking about becoming a person who is super friendly and can make
friends as quickly as Bill Gates makes money. Some of these social
butterflies are all surface, not able to carry a relationship very deep, or for
very long. As Samuel Butler said,
“Friendship
is like money – easier made than kept.”
You’ve
got to learn to hang on to your relationships, especially if you ever want to
have a family of your own, or work in the same place for over a year. But often
we destroy even our most precious relationships by blowing this one, critical
principle: Forgiveness.
Movie
Clip!
Use a clip from the third of the Indiana Jones trilogy (the
one with Sean Connery playing Indy’s father), where Indy finally gets his
hands on the Holy Grail and the cave begins to fall apart. Tell them a
little background and give a little lead time on the movie before the crucial
scene. In this scene,
Indiana
has dropped the cup onto a ledge that he can almost stretch to grasp. He
wants with everything to grasp it, but his father urges him with a phrase like,
“Let it go, Indy.” He reluctantly lets it go.
Debriefing:
Indiana Jones had to realize that some things that you really want to hang onto
aren't worth the cost. How does this relate to people who aren't willing to
release their anger at other people? (Let them share.) If we're like most
people, you're holding bitterness toward other people as tightly as Indiana
Jones wanted to hold that cup. But like Indiana, if you refuse to let it go, it
will destroy you.
Forgiveness
is something we all want others to show to us, but we have a terrible difficulty
showing to others. Let's look at it more deeply.
II.
What Does It Mean to Forgive?
Discussion:
On the surface, defining forgiveness seems like a no-brainer. It's not.
Let's take this as a working definition of
forgiveness:
"Neither
getting even on the outside nor holding grudges on the inside."
In
the light of this definition, let's discuss the following statements. Do they
represented true forgiveness, or a distortion of forgiveness?
-
"I
will forgive her. But I will never forget! (Distortion. Is holding
a grudge.)
-
"Although
he has repeatedly lied about me, I will still recommend him as school
principle since it would be wrong for me not to forgive him." (Distortion.
Since honesty is essential for good leadership, I should take his habitual
lying into consideration in my voting.)
-
"I don't get mad. I just get even!" (Distortion.
Obviously "getting even" shows lack of forgiveness.)
-
"I
don't get even. I just hold grudges inside." (Distortion.)
-
"Although
he has stolen from me in the past, I will forgive him and let him house-sit
for me while I'm on vacation." (Distortion. Taking into account a
person's record doesn't imply that I haven't forgiven him. Even if a known
child molester appeared repentant, I wouldn't allow him to baby sit my
children.)
Summary Thought:
If a relationship must change because of a person’s actions, it should not be
out of hate or resentment on my part.
III.
Why is it Important to Forgive?
Discussion:
Imagine
that your friend Ben comes to you with this problem:
I
found out last week that Cyndi's been cheating on me. While we were supposedly
going steady, she was dating my best friend. Now that we've officially broken
up, every time I see them together at lunch, my blood starts to boil. My
parents say I should forgive them, but that's the last thing I want to do.
They don't deserve my forgiveness. What do you think I should do?
What
could you say to Ben that might help him see the need to forgive? (Put ideas on
the board and add any of the following that they don't come up with.)
When
I retain bitterness and refuse to forgive, the person I actually hurt is
myself.
1 - Our
physical
health can suffer.
2 – We are robbed of our joy.
3 - If
you start a pattern of unforgiveness, all your long-term relationships,
including your future marriage will suffer.
IV.
Getting Personal
Let's
take the advice to Ben and apply it to ourselves. Some of us are probably
holding grudges right now. Do you have lists in your mind of the wrongs
people have done to you - promises your parents have not kept, that person who
cut you down with her words, that girl who stole your best friend? And the
lists keep getting longer. Listen, if you don’t do something about those
grudges, they will rob you of your joy and eat you alive.
Be
careful! Our minds throw up smoke screens, excuses to keep us from admitting our
problem. We'll say things like,
-
"It's
not that I won't forgive, we're just not talking." Right! And just why
are you not talking?
-
"But
it was really his fault." True. Otherwise why would you need to
forgive?
-
"But
you don't know how badly he hurt me." Nobody ever said forgiveness was
easy.
V.
What If My Heart Refuses To Forgive?
Imagine
that Ben says,
"OK,
OK, in my brain it makes sense that I should forgive them. But every time I see
them, the natural response of my emotions is to boil with hate. How can I make
the forgiveness get from my brain to my heart?"
What
would you say? (Let them share, then mention some of the following if they
don't.)
A.
Realize
that people seldom "get away with" bad acts and bad character.
Bad
character produces many other problems in their life. Sure, Cyndi and her new
boyfriend seem to be having fun now. But their lying and cheating will
ultimately harm their relationship and will cause other problems as well. The
more I reflect on the future impact of their character deficits, the easier it
is to turn my anger into pity.
B.
Look beneath the surface.
We tend to judge people by their
outward appearance. Ben gets angry because it looks like they're having all the
fun when he sees them in the hallway. But if he could see the totally of their
lives, he probably wouldn't want to exchange problems. Maybe they're desperately
escaping incredible troubles at home.
ILLUSTRATION:
Popular
author Stephen Covey turned
his irritation into pity when he
peeked below the surface. He
boarded a
New
York
subway one Sunday morning
to find a peaceful setting, everyone quietly reading or resting.
But mayhem
broke loose when a man and his rambunctious children entered.
The children yelled, grabbed newspapers from people, and threw things.
And the man sat there with his eyes closed, doing absolutely nothing.
Says Stephen, “I could not believe that he could be so insensitive as
to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no
responsibility at all.” So he
turned to the man and challenged him to control his kids.
OK, let’s be honest.
If you were on that tranquil subway trying to read a newspaper, and these
rug rats start poking your paper and creating chaos, wouldn’t you be ready to
strangle this irresponsible father? But what happened next cured Mr. Covey's
irritation.
“The
man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the
first time and said softly, “Oh, you’re right.
I guess I should do something
about it. We just came from the
hospital where their mother died about an hour ago.
I don’t know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to
handle it either.”
(Stephen R. Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon
and Schuster, 1990, pp. 30,31.)
Had you been Mr. Covey, how would that have
affected your irritation? You see, none of us know what lurks beneath the
surface that resulted in someone’s obnoxious behavior or hurtful comments.
We only see a small part of the bigger picture. Can't we imagine that the
person we're mad at may be dealing with unseen difficulties as well?
Conclusion
Knowing
what we know about forgiveness, we stand before two paths. The path of
unforgiveness leads to a life of bitterness, heartache and misery. The path of
forgiveness leads to freedom. Like Indiana Jones, we desperately want to hold
onto that cup of bitterness, knowing the cost, or to heed his father's warning
and "Let it go."
I
challenge you to go home tonight and jot down the initials of the people you've
refused to forgive. Then, say over the list, "It's over. You're forgiven. I
refuse to let my anger control me any longer." You may have to say it over
many times, when the old memories come rushing back, but it's that first step
that starts the healing.
(Copyright
August, 1997 by Legacy Educational Resources).
