Lesson 57

How Do I Forgive A Debt I Am Owed?

Sandra knew she harbored bitterness when someone’s presence or the mention of the person triggered a visceral, physical reaction within her. “I tense up, my thoughts turn immediately ugly, and my mood makes a complete 180 degree turn. The way I have learned to deal with bitterness is to dig into an active process of forgiveness. One way to look at forgiveness is the releasing of a debt we are owed. Often when we are bitter, we may just have a general feeling of dislike, anger, or distrust toward our husbands. Maybe we have specific thoughts that try to control or resist. I have found that the enemy wants to hide the true root from us and uses temptations that dance around the issue or may be quite vague.”

Sandra continued, “We can ask the Holy Spirit to reveal what debt we are truly holding in our hearts against our husbands (or anyone else). We can ask Him to show us what we feel our husband ‘owes’ us. (And this is often valid. Technically, according to our covenant, our husbands ‘owe’ us their faithfulness.) When we identify the debt, we can ask the Spirit to help us to release that debt to Him. We have had our own debt of sin forgiven by the Father through the Son, and He can empower us to forgive our husbands of their debts to us also through the Son in the power of the Spirit. This does not invalidate their debt. It is a serious offense against God and against us, but a serious price was paid in Christ’s death to both cover their sin and cover our pain at having been sinned against.”