Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

Barbara Cawthrone Crafton concludes her teaching and group interaction on the subject of forgiveness.

Process Stuff (from Embracing Forgiveness, Morehouse):

A friend told Barbara that if someone offends him, then that other person is essentially dead to him. This assertion leads Barbara into a compelling theological reflection which responds powerfully to the question, “Why forgive?” Here are 10 quotes from Barbara’s case for forgiveness:

1.     If someone has to be dead to me, then the world I hold is maimed, it’s damaged, it’s not complete, and it’s not true, because the person is not dead and does have lines in my play. I can’t take a pencil and draw a line through that person’s role in my life.

2.     The power of God, the energy of God, is the energy of existence, not non-existence.

3.     God is about being, not non-being. God is not a God who wants us to be less than we are. God is a God who has created us to be everything that we can be.

4.     When we refuse to forgive, we shrink our world. It is against God’s reality for us to shrink the world, because God’s energy has created an expanding universe, not a shrinking one.
God has set into motion this energetic creation so that we would be seeking our union with God. God attracts and we respond.

5.     There is a potent attractiveness between us and among us that is part of the attraction God has for us and the response we have toward God.

6.     To stand back from forgiveness is to feel that you can somehow decide not to be attracted to God.

7.     If my anger at you continues to sit in here (heart), I will be less able to respond authentically to the God who longs for me to respond.

8.     Wouldn’t it be better to have the energy of anger and non-forgiveness to use in some way other than keeping each other at arm’s length?

9.     The energy of God, the love of God flows unimpeded—a strong and powerful river. Wouldn’t it be better to let that river flow without any of the dams that could interrupt the flow of it?

Test the validity of these 10 statements for you by considering these kinds of questions:

1.     When have you felt “penciled out” of someone’s world? What was that like?

2.     What happened on occasions when you were trying to shrink your world while God was working to expand it?

3.     What’s that like when you just allow yourself to be drawn by the magnetic energy of God and let that be the force at work in your relationships?

4.     When have you noticed the difference between living fully into the spaciousness of God’s creation as opposed to expending energy on anger and non-forgiveness?