#449 - How to Forgive and Be Free - Virginia Prodan

0:00We are so glad to have you back here. Could I just leadership with Virginia Pradhan. Welcome, welcome, welcome, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever place you might be in this world. We are welcoming you. We are so glad to have you back here. Could I just leadership with Virginia Pradhan. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We are so glad to have you back here. I have to say that I receive so many notes after we publish our podcast, Forgive and Be Free. You know that is the phrase forgive and be free. It is about forgiveness. Being the act, selfish act, if you want, rather than a favor than to the offender, because many, many people think that when you forgive someone,

1:10you lower your standards, you don't see yourself as a person, you accept the hurt that the other person put on you and so forth. And we explain in that podcast what forgiveness is and what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not begging the other person for peace. Forgiveness is giving, releasing that person, finding out that the person that you release is yourself, because you don't want to rehearse in your mind, in your soul, in your emotions, again and again, what happened or to live in the past and to have that poison in your heart, in your life. You know, forgiveness is giving, giving release to what happened,

2:11giving release to the pain and saying, God, you take it and like you said, revenge, it's yours. You take care of this person. Give me your peace, your joy, your peace, there's your past, it's all understanding. But forgiveness, like I said, it's given. And you cannot give what you don't have. If you are empty, terrified and self-abandoning, you know, under the pressure of the hurt, past hurt, what you call forgiveness, my actually, my be compromised or concession. Let's define those two. Compromise or concession, I say, please don't be mad, please don't hurt me more. I will say whatever you want me to create peace. Forgiveness says what you did was wrong.

3:16I won't carry revenge, I release you, and I will still protect my life, my conscious, my calling, and my values. I will let God take the revenge. The problem is that many of you thinks that forgiveness is just one line. I forgive you, okay, don't worry, don't worry. And the next moment, you just don't want to discuss the problem. You don't want to confront the problem. And the next moment, you rehearse in your mind what happened. It's not a concession, it's a compromise. Let's make it clear. So, what are the steps, the practical steps for forgiveness? What can you do?

4:17First of all, is tell the truth, out loud. To yourself or to someone in a safe situation or to the person who has done it, if that is safe. If not, what I will advise many times, what I have done, was put a picture with a chair in front of me, put a picture of the person who hurt me, and start right down exactly what I want to say to that person, because he was not safe for me to be in the presence of that person. And you still have to forgive that person. And you start to tell loud the truth, you know, and forgiveness. That you think that it's built by your silence, by not confronting, it's fragile.

5:19You have to say the truth out loud. To yourself, to the picture like I did, you choose whatever you want, to the person that hurt you, if it's safe. You don't have to pretend that the hurt wasn't real. You have to name it. You have to choose your next step. For many of us, that forgiveness begins with this hurt me, or this changed me. I'm still angry, and I don't want to be angry. I want to release this. Step two. Separate forgiveness from access. Ask yourself a direct question.

6:20If I forgive that person, what access do I give them to me? Forgiveness doesn't automatically give access to that person. And the answer might be no access, or limited access, or a structural type of access. Forgiveness doesn't automatically reopen the door. You have to ask the Lord for wisdom. He will give you everything that you need in order to give you what you need to do. I'm looking for many Bible verses that I have around me,

7:26that the Lord is saying, in fact, I have one. It says, if the Lord delights in your way, He makes your step firm to move your stumble, but you're not for the Lord upholds you with His hand. Psalm 3732. Or, in Psalm 447, the Lord says, you give us victory of our enemy. The even one is the one who puts in our heart on other people's heart to harm others. So, Psalm 447 says, you got, give us victory of our enemy. You put our adversary to shame. So, the Lord will shame this person. Don't take revenge. It's not. You cannot say that, oh, I have to give them access,

8:26or I have to give them permission to do whatever they ask. They have done it before. Forgive and treat the treat as a threat. You're self-aware of the type of action that they can take it. Next, or at any time. Pray for them. But make yourself aware that it might be dangerous for you. Number three, the third step. Release revenge, fantasy, no accountability. The moment you start picturing, the downfall as you're healing, as you're trying your peace to their pain, that's dangerous. You have to release revenge.

9:29You have to pray for them. The Bible tells us that God is asking us to pray for us. In Matthew 1821. Yes. Peter asked, how many times, seven times, and Christ said, 77 times. This means forgiveness cannot be counted or ration. You have to give them forgiveness. And also Jesus told us in Matthew 612 in the Lord's Prayer, forgive us our debt, as we also forgive our debtors. That's what we have to do. Release, release revenge, or the idea of the revenge. You might not take steps, but you can think about, in a negative things,

10:29God is asking us to pray for our enemies. They might not be your enemies. They might have done something in a different situation. They might repeat what they have done. You know better in your own situation, but God is asking us to pray for them. Not the envision, negative things, or to wish bad things to happen to them. Number four, choose your wife for forgiveness. If you are forgiving to look good, the pressure will crush you. If you are forgiving because you don't want bitterness to occupy your mind, your forgiveness will be sustainable. If you forgive people because you want to be free,

11:31and because you want to obey the Lord, your forgiveness will be sustainable. In obedience, I forgive my enemies in Romania, as they will beat me, torture me, put me in the house or else, or even my assassin who came to kill me, and he put the gun in my head. I forgive him because God forgave me, and he gave me the power to forgive. I did not hold on hate, because I knew that God is a God of hope, God is a God of love. And what an amazing, an amazing witness, God gave me to share the gospel with my assassin, and for him to my surprise, to accept Christ as his Lord and Savior,

12:38you can read the whole story in this book, saving my assassin. Not only that, but he is a pastor now. And later on, he approached me, and he asked me to let him write a chapter in my book. And you read his chapter in my book, saving my assassin. You can find it at virginiapronounbooks.com. This is our God. He is giving us the power in the Holy Spirit to forgive our enemies. And the Holy Spirit can even change them in children of God. What a great testimony for my assassin. What a great testimony God gave me, because I obeyed him. And I share the gospel and I forgave my enemy. Only in heaven we will see, and I will see how many of these sacredity,

13:45government, communist government, police beating me and hurting me, and sharing my love. Christ loved with them. Maybe they accepted Christ without telling me. God gives us a mission, each one of us. And sometimes we are hurt in our mission. We are put down. Even people who make fun of us, being Christian, no matter what the situation might be. God will heal us. He will heal you. It will avenge his kiss. And he will even make our enemies our brothers, the sister in Christ.

14:47Step number five. Grieve what you lost. Maybe you lost a relationship. Maybe you lost brothers and sisters. Like in Romania, I defended Christians. Before I defended them, as nobody would defend them, no lawyers would defend them in communist Romania. Many of my clients lost brother and sister, mother and father, killed by the communist government. And I had to work with them and help them to forgive the government. And be obedient to God. But grieve what you lost. God is not against that. People keep and call it forgiveness. In real forgiveness, you often mourn. The safety you didn't have. Or you lost.

15:49The innocent you lost. The ears taken away from you. The trust broken. Because somebody betrayed you. In Romania, the communist government, many people, even people in the family would betray each other in order not to be put in jail or not to lose a job that was controlled by the government. In America, we see so many people now in college and university. They said that they are forced to betray God because the government will say, you, a Christian, we don't want you to our school or so far. Or their boss, whatever the situation might be. Or in their business. People will say, you have to make a cake for us, gay or lesbian.

16:49And if you don't want to make a cake and you want to make a cake just to honor God, then you need to lose the job. As a cake maker or a flower, you know, business person and so forth. The examples are here not only in Corrata Springs, but all over the world. People are lose many things because they are Christians. So refuse to be imprisoned by memories, by what you lost. God promised us that He will replace everything that we lost here on inhabit. Trust Him and see His power, His faithfulness at work in your life. And in the lives of many people. Step number six, watch your internal language.

17:49Yeah, and many times you might say, nobody hurt me, but God knows exactly what you think. He created us, He knows our thoughts. When you rehearse the story, you are talking to yourself like a person with value or like someone doing. Someone identified by the hurt of the bully, the hurt of the person that hurt you. Forgiven without losing yourself to requires that you stop narrating your own life as if the offender is the main character in your mind. Your values are coming from Christ.

18:53It's a simple shift, but it's huge. What you can do is, when those thoughts come to your mind, go to the Bible, go to Psalm, Proverbs, and see how God describes you. You are beautifully made. You are conqueror. You are victor. So any time when those thoughts come to you, read loud those Bible verses or learn them by heart. And counterbalance until those thoughts will go away and the values of Christ will remain sustainable in you. Yes, it's a simple shift, but it's a huge one.

19:54When you have to be determined, you have to be the owner with the God of your story. He knows your future. It's bright. He knows what is capable to do in your life, to restore your life and make you more and more like Christ. Number seven, consider the timing and the form of forgiveness. This is important. Some people can forgive privately between them and God or in their own conscious. Without even contacting the offender, I'm explaining to you how I did. I put the chair up the big chair and I created a list of things that the offender has done to me and I release it.

20:55I have to tell you that when I finish, I felt so free. I was ready to run around the world. I had so much energy. I had so much joy. I had so much, so much power as a victor one. And I advise you to do that. Well, others, they want to have a conversation if that is possible with the offender. But only if it's safe and only if it is a safe place for them. For some forgiveness might be incremental. You might start with, I am willing to be willing to forgive. But I'm not ready then. I'm not going to act on revenge. And you say that to you several times and you're conscious about that. Later, you might say, I'm letting go of the obsession to relieve that story over again in my mind.

22:03Or later, you can say, I can wish them repentance without wishing them hot. You might be surprised some of them will never repent. You still have to address the dangers. Forgiveness being used as a weapon against victim. If you grow up in an environment when people are demanded forgiveness to cover abuse, this topic can feel like a trap to you. And it's very painful. It's very painful to you or to others. So be careful. Forgiveness is a way of avoiding consequences for others.

23:06I ask you to forgive them because they don't want to support the consequences. I forgive my, my particulars in Romania or people here without tolerating evil. I resisted evil without becoming one. I released them. And that is the line, resisting evil without becoming one. But if you forgive when you just do it again, when you think, oh, I forgive them, but are they going to do it again? Or that is not forgiveness. You think that's an eye-evergy.

24:09Forgiveness doesn't mean trusting someone who is untrustworthy. Forgiveness doesn't mean to be careless. Forgiveness means to be courageous and wise. And let them go. Let the hurt they provided, they put on you to let go, honoring your values, not compromising your values. Yes, the cost might be high. But don't stay in that harmless circle. I forgive and I will pursue healing, my healing, not isolation, but a community of people that will help me to heal. Forgiveness, it's powerful. Forgiveness is an act of your will.

25:16Yes, you might from time to time remember the situation, but you have to continue to forgive until all these bad memory will go away and be replaced with new, a joyful image. You can heal at peace. You can build a life bigger than what happened to you. God has a future for you. Refuse to be a prisoner of your past, but a conqueror in God's love and not submissive to the evil one. You can forgive and you can be free. You can forgive and be a witness for many people of God's love, your submission to God and God unfailing love for every soul.

26:20I hope you will send me your comments and how God will help you. If you have any questions we are here to help you. Until next time, we hope to hear from you, your comments, concerns, your questions, share this podcast with others. I will put all the information in the context of the podcast. Until next time, God bless you and don't forget you are...