To Forgive Is to Remember... Differently

Memories can pull us to places we don’t want to go to. But to forgive is not to forget, but to remember … differently.

My father used to play lawn bowls.

In lawn bowls, the bowl that you roll down the green is slightly weighted heavier on one side. As it rolls down the tightly clipped perfect lawn, it loses speed and rolls to one side. The bowl has a bias and tips over to the heaviest side.

I think my brain, and its wiring, has a bias. A negativity bias. If allowed to drift, the thoughts seem to drift to the negative.

They roll downward.

Rick Hanson puts it this way.

Your brain is continually looking for bad news. As soon as it finds some, it fixates on it with tunnel vision, fast-tracks it into memory storage, and then reactivates it at the least hint of anything even vaguely similar. But good news gets a kind of neural shrug: “uh, whatever.”

In effect, the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones. Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

Do you find it easier to slide in your thinking to the negative than to the good?

I need help and I think you do too.

Not so much to keep focusing on the positive, but to keep focused on truth – God’s truth, how God sees everything.

How you talk about God is how you talk about everything.

I need help to balance my brain with a kind of grounded God reality that keeps me running true and straight.

Not too much negative that might drag me away and under waves of despair.

Not too much positive that floats me away like an untethered balloon.

To Forgive Is to Remember… Differently

Much of our thought life can be so connected to hurts and pains of the past.

Things we have done or not done. Things others have done to or not done.

Those are all memories collected in the brain. We add to them; we embellish them. We tart them up, we tear them down.

We ponder over them, and they form us. Our thoughts form our character.

I want release from certain memories, or maybe I don’t. Maybe I want to keep them because they give me an identity. I am victim – look at my past, have pity on me, life has been so hard.

I want to remember differently. I want to remember with grace.

Recently I read this article ‘To Forgive Is to Remember… Differently’

Here is a quote.

Forgiveness involves the emotional reappraisal of the memory of a past wrongdoing.
When you forgive someone for a wrongdoing, you don’t forget the event. But once you forgive, the memory doesn’t hurt as much. Felipe De Brigard To Forgive Is to Remember… Differently

Maybe, if the memory doesn’t hurt as much, it won’t demand our attention. We can let the memory go, and see it subside away into the background.

If our hearts condemn us

I need someone greater than myself. One that is all knowing about everything has happened. One that can hold all the stitching of history together in one weave. Someone who has seen it all, understands it all and can hold it all together.

I need a perfect one who can hold all my successes and failures in all knowing hands and give me balance.

I come to a Jesus’ follower called John, who wrote this down.

If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.1 John 3:20

My heart so often condemns me.

John also scribed these words.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

Forgiveness and a cleanup are on offer.

Jesus on the neurological pathway

Jesus is now on the neurological pathway of my brain.

Imagine you are triggered in someway to remember a hurt, a pain. Something you did. Something done to you.

Immediately you bias flow via a brain pathway to a place of hurt, pain, loss, confusion, despair. Youve been there many times. It’s a familiar, well worn, rutted path.

But this time Jesus the Christ steps out and onto the path. He blocks your thought flow and speaks these words. ‘Forgiven, set free, no need to go there anymore, I know it all.’

A peace fills your life. An openness germinates in your soul for something good and whole.

Forgiveness is the invite to remember, but with a difference. We remember Christ.

I remember, but with a difference

Where I focus
Is where I go
What I remember
Can pull me below

I don’t want to go there
But it has a magnetic pull
What I choose to habitually remember
Keeps me living in its drool

It has a grip
A deathly drag
‘Help me Jesus’ I cry
To forgive this wayward man

He steps in front
Blocks the brain wired path
‘No more going there’ he declares
‘It’s forgiven, no need to re-litigate the past’

He stands in front
Glowing bright
Or is it blood and gore?
From a bloody fight

Pierced hands and wrists
Wounded side
Resurrected glory
New hope for me into confide

Whenever I begin
To subtly drift on down
My Christ stands in front of me
Brings a bowl and towel

Then to his knees he stoops
He washes my dirty feet
With tears of love that flow
He is making me complete

I remember things with a difference now
They are dealt with and I am free
Whenever my brain wants to go that way
I remember what Christ wants me to see

I see his warm and gentle face
A hug and welcome to embrace
He nurtures the hurting child
A new life full of grace

Questions?
Comments?
Email me 🙂📨
barry@turningthepage.co.nz

Give a little gift to keep the pages turning

Quotes to consider

Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny. Lao Tzu
Rack the muck this way.

Rack the muck that way.

It will still be muck.

In the time you are brooding,

you could be on your way,

stringing pearls for the delight of heaven.

(Hasidic teaching)
Supernatural goals need supernatural resources. Larry Crabb
We cannot embrace God’s forgiveness if we are so busy clinging to past wounds and nursing old grudges. T. D. Jakes
The willingness to forgive may be a choice, but the ability to comes after gaining greater understanding. David Riddell
Improvement of our lives begins with the renewing of our minds, which is begun in turn by challenging old beliefs and childhood conclusions. David Riddell
To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. C.S. Lewis
There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love. Bryant H. McGill
If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive. Mother Teresa

Questions to answer

Where does your mind bias so easily take you?
What is easier? Forgiving yourself or forgiving others?
What do you think Jesus would say to you if he jumped into some of your neurological pathways?

Formation exercise

Write a brief story in your journal about walking down a brain pathway. Something triggers you to walk down a dark pathway. You are about to step down that path, but Jesus jumps out of the bushes (🙂) and blocks the path. What does he say? What does he show you? What does he remind you of? What is his invite?