I’ve noticed that sometimes when we are going through a rough spot, God provides a friend who is also struggling or has struggled in the same area, maybe to help us sort things out. During a chat with one such friend, she shared that she just couldn’t “let it go.” I connected with her and wondered, “What does ‘letting it go’ mean for me?” A dictionary definition for forgiveness brought clarity. To forgive is to “stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake.” I had already made the choice to forgive, but it seemed like I didn’t know how to shake off those feelings of anger or resentment. I was stumped. So, I asked the Lord to give me some insight.
God gave me an answer through a DVD series entitled, The Guided Traveler Experience. In it, Andy Andrews presented a simple principle regarding forgiveness and trust. He said,
I think I had expected my choice of forgiveness to act like a magic wand and make feelings of trust for my offender resurface. The realization that it wasn’t true was a little disappointing, because I truly did want to reconcile. But, when I accepted the truth that trust is about “them” and “the future,” I no longer felt frustration and my feelings of resentment began to dissipate. I couldn’t control my friend’s reliability, her character or her actions. Those things were simply out of my control. And yet for relationship to continue, it would be up to me to watch her in the future to see if she had truly changed.
Joseph exemplifies this principle of forgiveness and trust. 1 Joseph forgave the past, and, because he did so, he truly became the person God created him to be. It is my belief that he never would have risen to the powerful position of viceroy of Egypt without forgiveness because he would have instead become a bitter, self-focused man. Joseph also knew about trust because he patiently waited for the future to issue some intentional tests to his brothers.
When his brothers showed up in Egypt to buy food, Joseph didn’t reveal his identity right away. Nor did Joseph try to coerce an apology from his brothers, because he knew it would rob them of the opportunity to prove the change in their hearts and to apologize on their own.
Joseph needed to perceive true repentance from his brothers and proof of love for their father and for Benjamin. Joseph sought for answers to certain questions before relationship with his brothers could be restored. The series of tests Joseph designed may have meant to answer questions like: Had they kidnapped Benjamin from Jacob to get more food? Would the brothers explode in jealous hostility when Joseph showed favoritism to Benjamin by giving him five times as much? What would the brothers do when Joseph announced his intention to keep Benjamin as a slave after Joseph’s cup was found in his sack? Would they seek to gain their own freedom at the expense of Benjamin and their father?
Because Joseph had already forgiven his brothers and trusted God for the outcome of the evil plotted against him, he was able to test his brothers without malice or ill will. Joseph must have felt great relief that his brothers could be trusted. They had behaved in the opposite manner than they had with him and thus demonstrated true repentance. They were willing to take Benjamin’s place, even if it meant their own slavery.
Reading Joseph’s story makes me wonder if it was difficult at times for Joseph to “let it go,” especially when he was alone, without his family, when he was falsely accused and when he was thrown into prison to rot. We don’t get to see his struggle, if indeed he did struggle with forgiveness. What the Scriptures do reveal is a very wise man who chose to forgive, who chose to see his circumstances as a means of God’s salvation for others and who was able to restore relationship with his brothers because he was patient and waited for them to prove their reliability in the future.
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