The Healing of Forgiveness (Joseph Part 2)

By Laura McDowell

To forgive others is probably one of the hardest things God asks His followers to do. Correction, to forgive others is probably one of the hardest things God commands His followers to do. This blog may be a little prickly to some, but I pray that it would be received well.

We last left off with Joseph having been released from prison and brought before Pharaoh because Pharaoh’s wine server remembered that Joseph could interpret dreams, and Pharaoh had had a couple dreams that no one else had been able to interpret for him. So, kind of as a last-ditch effort, Pharaoh sent for Joseph. So God, through Joseph, interpreted the dreams and Pharaoh was informed that there would be 7 years of plenty for Egypt followed by 7 years of famine and, if Egypt didn’t do something to prepare, it would not survive. Impressed by Joseph’s wisdom and ability to interpret his dreams, Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of the entire land of Egypt; Pharaoh was the only one more powerful than him.

Joseph did an excellent job of preparing Egypt for the 7 years of famine, so when the famine hit, Egypt was fine; they had stored plenty of grain during the 7 years of plenty. Here’s where it gets fun though. The famine didn’t just affect Egypt; it also affected Canaan, where Joseph’s brothers lived. When Joseph’s father heard that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he sent his sons there to buy some. At this time, Joseph just so happened to be the one who oversaw the sale of grain to people who came from outside Egypt to buy it. Sure enough, Joseph sees his brothers – the very brothers who betrayed him and sold him as a slave all those years ago.

“…But he acted like he didn’t know them. He was rude when he spoke to them…Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not know who he was” (Genesis 42: 7, 8).

I encourage you to read Joseph’s story in Genesis for yourself, but Joseph kind of gives them a hard time at first, going so far as to throw them all in prison for 3 days at one point (Genesis 42:17). But a few chapters later Joseph finally reveals to them who he is, and his brothers were very afraid at first because of what they had done to him in the past. But

Joseph says to them,

“Now don’t be worried. Don’t be angry with yourselves for what you did. It was God’s plan for me to come here. I am here to save people’s lives…So God sent me here ahead of you so that I can save your people in this country. It was not your fault that I was sent here. It was God’s plan. God made me like a father to Pharaoh. I am the governor over all his house and over all Egypt” (Genesis 45:5-8).

Did Joseph say the actual words, “I forgive you”? No, but I think it’s pretty evident by what he said that he did. And not only that, but he also tells them to go back to Canaan and get their families and to all move down to Egypt, which they do.

What does the Bible say about forgiveness? It says that “if we confess our sins, God will forgive us” (1 John 1:9), that we need to “forgive each other the same as God forgave [us] through Christ” (Ephesians 4:32), to not “be angry with each other, but forgive each other. If you feel someone has wronged you, forgive them. Forgive others because the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13), and Jesus said if we “don’t forgive others, then [our] Father in heaven will not forgive the wrongs [we] do” (Matthew 6:15). Pretty straightforward right? Then why is it so hard? Because, according to Elisabeth Elliott,

“forgiveness is the unconditional laying down of my rights”.

Forgiving others is part of taking up our cross daily and dying to ourselves, as God calls us to. One of the reasons God commands us to forgive others is that it’s more for our benefit than for theirs. Someone once said, “Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free and realizing you were the prisoner”. Forgiveness allows you to heal.

The alternative to forgiving someone is harboring bitterness and resentment towards them which will 1) never allow you to move past the event and begin the healing process and 2) will slowly drain the life out of you. I remember seeing a quote a long time ago at an Amish store. I don’t know who said it, but it said, “Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” And that is exactly what will happen to you if you continue to harbor bitterness, resentment, and anger towards someone and refuse to forgive them: you will slowly poison yourself and you will never heal. And healing is what the Lord wants for you.

If someone who hurt you comes to you and asks your forgiveness, forgive them. Even if they never ask you for your forgiveness, forgive them anyway. Why? Because the Lord tells us to. It’s a command, not a suggestion. He even says that if we don’t forgive others, he won’t forgive us (refer to Matthew 6:15). Remember, he has already forgiven us so greatly because he sacrificed himself on the cross “while we were still sinners” so that we could be made right with him (Romans 5:8). If the Lord forgives, we must forgive too. Servants are not greater than their master (John 13:16).

I know that there are those out there, perhaps even some that are reading this, that have experienced unimaginable hurt by someone you thought you could trust. If that is you, understand that the Lord sees you, He loves you, He cares about you, He knows what you’ve been through, and He wants to provide healing in that area, but you must learn to forgive before the healing process can truly begin.

I’d like to end by sharing a story of an incredible Christian woman who demonstrated that forgiveness of a tremendous wrong can only be achieved by the power of God and not of our own strength.

It’s the story of Corrie Ten Boom, who’s family hid and/or assisted roughly 800 Jews during WWII. Most of her family died or were imprisoned as a result and she and her sister, Betsie, were both thrown into the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where Betsie died. Corrie survived and years later was speaking at a church in Munich about forgiveness, of all things. After she was done, she saw a man, a guard from Ravensbrück that she remembered, one of the guards ultimately responsible for her sister’s death, making his way towards her through the crowd of people. She panicked, thinking about how she had just spoken on forgiveness and now didn’t think she had the strength needed to forgive this man. When he reached her, he said that he had become a Christian since that time in Ravensbrück and that he knew that God had forgiven him of the terrible things he had done there. And then he asked her,

“Will you forgive me?”

“And I stood there…I whose sins had every day to be forgiven – and could not. Betsie had died in that place – could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking? It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do. For I had to do it – I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. ‘If you do not forgive men their trespasses,’ Jesus says, ‘neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.’…And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion – I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. ‘Jesus, help me!’ prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’ And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one

stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. ‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart!’”

Corrie also writes about how, after WWII, she started a home in Holland that served to provide a place of shelter and healing for those who had been victims of Nazi brutality during the war. Of those she cared for in the home she said,

“Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.”

Both Joseph and Corrie had a chance to offer forgiveness to people who had done terrible things to them. And both, with God’s help, did. God used their obedience to not only provide healing in their lives, but also to create a legacy and a testimony for future generations. Both experienced unspeakable trauma at the hands of others, and both extended forgiveness to those same hands later. May we, like Joseph and Corrie, extend the same forgiveness to others who have wronged us.

“Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free and realizing you were the prisoner”.

Forgiveness allows you to heal.