Why Forgiving Someone Doesn't Mean Letting Them Get Away With It

It doesn't. Forgiveness and justice are two different things and they can both exist at the same time. God never asked you to choose between them. What He did ask is that you release the debt, even while other things are still being addressed.

We have been walking through Eric's story this week. His wife and unborn child were killed in a car crash caused by another driver. Yesterday we cleared out a long list of myths about what forgiveness is not. Today I want to deal with the one that makes the most people dig in their heels.

Forgiving someone feels like letting them win. Like they did something terrible and now you are supposed to just release them from it and they walk away free while you are still carrying the damage. That does not feel right. And honestly, I get it.

But that feeling is built on a definition problem, not a Scripture problem.

Does Forgiving Someone Mean They Get Away With It?

No. And Eric's story makes this clear.

Eric forgiving the driver who killed his wife and unborn child does not mean the driver escapes accountability. There may still be a legal process. There may still be consequences. Forgiveness does not erase what happened in the natural world. It deals with what is happening in your heart.

You can forgive someone and still allow a broken relationship to stay broken. You can forgive someone and still maintain healthy boundaries with them. You can forgive someone and still address the root of the issue so it does not happen again. Forgiveness does not shut down wisdom. It does not require you to act like nothing happened. It just means you are releasing them from the debt in your own heart.

And here is the part we have to sit with. The driver in Eric's story was not some reckless criminal out looking for trouble. His name was Matt. He was a twenty year old firefighter and EMT leaving after a twenty four hour shift. He fell asleep at the wheel. He woke up to the sound of the crash. And he has had to live with that ever since.

Now you might be reading that and thinking, well, knowing that makes it easier. And maybe it does. But here is the honest truth. Most of the time we do not get that kind of context. We do not know what was happening in someone's life the day they hurt us. We do not know what they were carrying, what they had been through, what contributed to the moment when they failed us.

And that is exactly why we have to learn to make up the story.

What Does It Mean to Make Up the Story?

Not to excuse what happened. Not to pretend it did not hurt. But to pause long enough to consider that the person who hurt you is also an imperfect human being who under the right circumstances, on the wrong day, with the wrong tools in place, made a choice or made a mistake that cost you something real.

As long as we are in relationship with imperfect people, and we always will be, there will be moments when they hurt us. Not because they do not love us. Because they are imperfect. And the enemy is working on them the same way he is working on us.

Sometimes the counterfeit shows up in them instead of in us. Sometimes they do not have the tools. Sometimes they have a bad day and we are in the path of it.

That is not a license for bad behavior. It is a lens adjustment.

Think about church hurt specifically because this is one of the places people get stuck the longest. Culture tells us that people in the church love God, and if they love God, they should know better, and if they know better, there is no excuse. But the church is full of imperfect people trying to get it right, just like you. Including the pastor. None of us checked our humanity at the door. And holding the people inside the church to a standard of perfection that you do not hold yourself to is a double standard that will keep you bitter and church hopping indefinitely.

What Did Jonah Teach Us About This?

Jonah is one of my favorite examples here because he did not want to forgive, and he was not quiet about it.

God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and warn the people that He was not pleased with their behavior and judgment was coming. Jonah did not want to do it. He ran the other direction. He got swallowed by a great fish. He became obedient. He went to Nineveh and delivered the message.

And then the people of Nineveh actually changed their ways. And God showed them mercy.

And Jonah got mad.

Jonah 4:1 (NKJV) says, "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry." Here he was, doing all this work, going through all of this, and now God was just going to give them a pass? That is not fair. That is not how this should work. They were wilding out and now they just get mercy?

We do that. We decide someone's offense is too big for grace. We become the self-appointed judges of who deserves forgiveness and who does not. And often, the people we decide do not deserve it are the ones God is also trying to reach. The prodigal son's older brother did the same thing. Stayed home, did everything right, and was furious when the father threw a party for the one who ran off and squandered everything.

God wants the soul of the person who hurt you too. He is working on them the same way He is working on you. And He may even want to use you in that process. We will see exactly how that played out with Eric and Matt before this series is over.

Shed the belief that forgiveness means the other person wins. Shed the double standard that says you are entitled to grace but the people who hurt you are not. Shed the tendency to judge others for offenses you have never committed but, honestly, could under the wrong circumstances. And shed the myth that forgiveness and justice are the same thing. They are not. God can handle both.

Take this to the Word yourself. Jonah 4:1-11, Luke 15:25-32, Matthew 7:1-5, Acts 7:60.

What This Means for You

Is there someone you have been holding at arm's length from forgiveness because what they did felt too big or too wrong? What would it change if you separated the question of forgiveness from the question of consequences?

This continues the Why You Mad series. Last time we got into what forgiveness actually is and is not. Next, we are going to talk about something that trips a lot of people up even after they think they have forgiven. Why do I keep replaying what someone did to me? And what does that mean?

I teach God's Word weekly inside the SheShed Community, and this is exactly the kind of teaching that hits different when you're in the room for it. The replay of this teaching, "Why You Mad," is available inside the community as well. Come sit with us.