We talk a lot about forgiving others, but forgiving ourselves can be harder. How have you learned to extend grace to yourself after mistakes?
I can only speak for myself, but I found that forgiving yourself can be even harder than forgiving others. What has helped me, or at least made it easier to try, is to think of people like Abraham, who pretended his wife Sarah was his sister on two occasions to save himself from his own perceived danger. Or David, who committed adultery and murder. Or the greatest example is Saul, who tortured and killed God’s early Christian followers, becoming Paul, who wrote a lot of the New Testament we read today.
If God can forgive and use them, He can surely forgive me. We are told.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
God wants us to be kind.
“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:32
If we truly repent, God has already forgiven us.
"Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.” Act 3:19-21
Like I said, this has helped me, hope it may help someone else.
Peter
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I often find it’s harder to forgive myself than to forgive others.
One thing that’s helpful to me in self-forgiveness is to remind myself that God sees Jesus’ righteousness when he looks at me. This reminder is especially powerful, I find, during Communion at church when I am reflecting on the power of Jesus’ sacrifice.
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Forgiveness is an interesting concept. It is about the restoration of a relationship. The offending party needs to acknowledge the wrong and ask for forgiveness. This seldom happens. As a result, people can attempt unilateral “forgiveness (unasked for).This is pretty much just letting go of an offense.
The phrase forgiving yourself is brought into parlance through psychology and is less accurate than unilateral forgiveness. If a person feels guilt and shame for something, it can be useful. For example, the motivation not do do something wrong can be fueled by guilt. Shame can motivate us to make restitution or set things as right as they can be set.
After everything useful has been extracted from guilt ans shame, it is useful to let it go. Some continue to dredge up shame and guilt almost to whip themselves with it. One can imagine how unhealthy that is. We can “touch” shameful memories occasionally to help us not to think too highly of ourselves and maintain humility.
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Do you believe that God has forgiven you of what ever sin is troubling you?
If you do then may I suggest that when the rememberance of that sin troubles you.
That you spend time thanking and praising God for Jesus, for his gracious and merciful forgiveness of this and every other sin you have committed.
The forgiveness of self sometimes means we need to remind oursrlves that God has forgiven us of ALL our sins, as well as using that fact to rebuke the devils attempt to spoil our peace by reminding us of past sins etc.
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