A friend approached me, visibly upset. She needed to tell me something. What she shared shocked me, though I had suspected it: a mutual acquaintance had been spreading slander about me. The news set a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts racing through my head. It was hard to reel them in. When I calmed down, I was left with the question: how should I react?
All of us face situations where we are wronged. The offense can range from grievous to trivial. I would describe my experience above as relatively minor compared to the horrors some people endure. Yet regardless of the misdeed’s severity, Jesus tells us to love our enemies and to forgive. Our natural reaction to this command is, “No way!” So how can we move from resisting to actually obeying Jesus’ words? I have found that one specific action has helped me a lot.
Before I go on, I need to add one important detail: forgiving doesn’t mean not seeking justice when necessary. If a crime is involved, the perpetrator should be punished under the law. This is for the good of everyone involved and of society as a whole. What I’m talking about here is the attitude of our hearts. We need to love and forgive even if the offender ends up in jail.
What has been so helpful in my attempts to obey the impossible command of Jesus? It’s simple, really, but oh so difficult to do: I refuse to think negatively about the wrongdoer. I fight any antagonistic thought that comes to mind. I especially avoid imagining situations in which the culprit suffers in return for whatever pain he or she caused me.
Sometimes I feel like my mind is protected by a feeble dam that barely holds back the deluge of negative thoughts trying to enter. When they seep through, as they inevitably do, I have to get them back under control and kick them out again. It’s not easy, but I have found that if I don’t feed them, over time the attacks become less relentless, and after a while they stop altogether.
I’m not implying that we should ignore what happened; I’m just saying we shouldn’t add to it with our thoughts. The mind is so good at feeding emotions like anger, hurt, and offense by using its imagination to magnify what happened. But even if we stick to the bare facts without amplification, constantly rehashing the wrongdoing only makes things worse.
I strongly believe that the first step toward forgiveness and love is to stop feeding hostile thoughts about the person who hurt us. I have seen the same process repeat itself over and over: I can forgive only after I refrain from feeding my anger. Our minds can move in only one direction at a time: either toward rage and bitterness or toward forgiveness and love. Whichever we feed with our thoughts is the way it will go.
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul gives us helpful guidelines for evaluating our thoughts. What’s interesting is that it’s only a few verses after he encouraged two women, who had been fighting, to reconcile. Those two ladies certainly needed to hear what Paul had to say: Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Phil 4:8-NIV)
Returning to my opening scene, I eventually chose the path of forgiveness and love (not without difficulty). I cut out all hostile and antagonistic thoughts and reined in my imagination. In time, my hurt and anger disappeared. The wrongdoer apologized, and I can say with joy that we have a good relationship. This would have been impossible if I hadn’t stopped all the negativity in my mind.