Forgiveness is Like Losing Weight

Lack of forgiveness, and its debilitating effects, are much easier to see in the life of someone else than in our own life. Janet and I notice this all the time in missionaries we work with. The relational pain we watch Christian workers going through sometimes breaks our hearts. Equally heartbreaking is seeing how difficult forgiving others is at times for the one who’s been harmed, for the one who has suffered at the hands of another. This forgiveness business is a lot like working to lose weight.

Both require us to say “No” to something we want. In relating to others it’s saying “No” to our right to make someone pay for an injustice we’ve suffered at their hands. With losing weight it’s saying “No” to the comfort that food brings. Both require us to relinquish our rights.

Forgiving someone who has hurt us and working to lose weight require sacrifices from us. Both take time. Done well, both of them bring freedom and energy to our lives. Often, however, just when we think we’ve mastered both, we fall backwards. So we start all over again.

The cost of withholding forgiveness or failing to loose unwanted weight is very high. Both have a perceived benefit that is alluring, but false. To hang on to our rights for justice has the enticing benefit of letting us live as a victim, for it requires nothing of us. It’s all about the other guy and what they’ve done. It’s something from the past we can re-live over and over again, like endless late night re-runs of Seinfeld and M*A*S*H. It’s like going to the refrigerator and eating cold left-overs again and again, hoping each time they will taste just as good as they did when served hot out of the oven several days before. But with each bite we just swallow more disappointment.

Withholding forgiveness is never being fully present in the here and now, because the pain of the back then and there consumes us. Drains us. Saps us of our energy. What a waste.

To cling to our right to make someone pay for what they have done to us is to live with the illusion that somehow justice will prevail, that the guilty one will be discovered, and that I will be exonerated. Sadly, even when we do let someone off the hook it often doesn’t change how the person who harmed me relates to me. But that’s not the point. Not to be confused with reconciliation, which takes two to make happen, forgiveness is always something we can extend on our own. It doesn’t matter how the other person responds.

How then do we relinquish our right to justice? This takes supernatural power that only comes from Jesus. It’s calling upon the Lord to give us what we need to let go, to relinquish our rights, to trust him to render justice in his due timing.

We saw an example of this some time ago when a missionary talked to us about the harm done to her and her family by her missionary colleagues. It had been several years since the offense occurred, and yet she thought about it almost daily. She knew she had to forgive, and she wanted to. But it was hard. After considerable time spent talking to her about this over several months, there came a breakthrough when she realized, “You know, this is all taking way too much of my time and energy. What a waste it’s been to keep thinking about this. There’s stuff I want to do and this is getting in the way. What a waste!”

Like losing weight, forgiving someone starts with a choice. We can chose to continue to carry around unwanted pounds because that feels better than saying no to the pleasure food brings - or we can relinquish our rights to feel good now, knowing that we’ll feel even better in the future. It works like this in relationships too. Half the battle in forgiving is wanting to.

For more on the importance of the “want too” in our relationships, click here.

Finally, In weight loss circles you often hear the expression,

Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.

In forgiving others, a similar aphorism applies,

Forgiveness granted satisfies more than justice received.

Return to top of the Forgiveness page