“Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever been stuck? There are all kinds of ways to be stuck. We can be stuck in traffic. We can be stuck on a math problem. We can be stuck on a vehicle repair. We can be stuck on a writing assignment. We can be stuck on a word puzzle. Being stuck isn’t much fun, especially when we can’t immediately see how to get ourselves unstuck. As frustrating as all of those different forms of being stuck can be, there’s another that can be even harder to experience. We can be relationally stuck. Getting stuck in the context of a relationship can feel like it puts our entire life on hold. Even being relationally stuck, though, can come from a number of different sources such that getting unstuck can feel almost impossible. Today, let’s talk about a way to help us move forward when we’re relationally stuck that works in almost every situation.

When the apostle Paul was calling the believers in ancient Colossae to reflect the character of God in their lives, he gave them a whole laundry list of examples of what that looked like. He started with compassion. We serve a God who is compassionate. If we are going to call ourselves His followers, we need to be compassionate with the people around us. The same goes with kindness. There is never an excuse for not being kind. Whenever someone has done something to us that we don’t like, we are always to respond with kindness and never merely in kind.

We could do the same thing with the other items Paul lists in v. 12—humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love. Paul lists all of these very quickly, one after the next. And did you notice what he said we are to do with these things. We are to put them on. Why would we need to put them on? Because they don’t come naturally to us. These aren’t the kinds of things we turn to just on our own. On our own we are more drawn in the direction of schadenfreude than compassion. We are cruel. We are proud, harsh, impatient, and write each other off rather than putting up with one another. The character of God, though, is something that we have to actively put on with His help. If we are going to be called His followers, though, this is part of the gig.

There’s one other thing that Paul includes on this list. In fact, this last item isn’t just included, it could arguably be called the feature of the list. Paul simply mentions all the other items here, but this last item he takes the whole next verse (for us, Paul wasn’t thinking in terms of chapters and verses when he was writing) to unpack it in more detail. That suggests a level of importance in terms of our goal of reflecting God’s character in our lives as His “chosen ones, holy and dearly loved” that goes beyond the other items on the list. And what is this final thing? Forgiveness.

If you are stuck in a relationship – and by that I don’t mean you can’t get out of it, I mean that you are in it, and it is not moving forward at all because of some conflict that happened in the past or is perhaps still ongoing – until you remove the block, you’re not going anywhere. The relationship isn’t going anywhere. So then, how do you remove the block? Well, that depends to some extent on the reason for the block in the first place, but a great many of the kinds of relational blocks we face that get us stuck are the result of an offense of some kind. The other person said or did something that hurt us. It may be a little hurt, or it may be a big hurt, but the hurt is the point.

When we have been dealt an offense like this, the only way we are going to move forward from it is to release the other person from the debt they owe us because of it. That is, we have to forgive them. That’s all forgiveness is, by the way. It is releasing another person from a debt they owe us because of an offense they’ve dealt us. Until that happens, we’re not going anywhere in that relationship. I wonder how many relationships have been essentially frozen in place for years because of a refusal on the part of the people in it to do this. Even once a relationship has ended, if we have outstanding offenses against us, the relational block those can cause can actually prevent us from finding lasting success and happiness in other relationships that come later. If you are relationally stuck and an offense of some kind – even if it is only a perceived offense – is the cause, forgiveness is the only way you’ll be able to get unstuck.

Forgiveness is sometimes a hard concept for us to grasp, though, so let’s take just another minute to make sure we understand it. Forgiveness does not mean the offense didn’t hurt. In fact, real forgiveness requires us to acknowledge that it hurt which may be a reason so many people struggle with doing it. They don’t want to revisit the pain of the offense that going through the process of forgiveness will require them to do.

Forgiveness also does not mean that it was okay that whatever it was happened. The very fact that we are stuck points rather insistently to the reality that it was not okay. If it was okay, we wouldn’t be having to forgive. Forgiveness does not mean we have to put ourselves back in a position in which we can be hurt again. This is especially true if the other person is not repentant at all. In that case, we are wisest to take whatever measures are necessary to prevent our being hurt again, as well as to protect those around us who might be hurt collaterally by a repeat of the original offense. Forgiveness does not imply that the relationship is going to be reconciled. Reconciliation is a hopeful outcome of forgiveness, but it is not a foregone conclusion of the effort. Rather, reconciliation can only happen when both parties are repentant.

That’s all what forgiveness is not. So then, let’s talk just a bit further about what forgiveness actually is. To say it again, forgiveness is releasing another person from the debt they owe us because of an offense they’ve dealt us. Forgiveness is an acknowledgment that we are not the chiefly offended party in the dispute. That’s a really hard acknowledgment to make, but it is one that is consistent with reality. That distinction belongs to God who created the world and everything in it, whose character and identity define reality, and whose sovereign will has been violated by the offense. And that God has already pronounced the sin involved in the offense as forgiven in Christ. That forgiveness is what Paul calls us to walk in there at the end of v. 13. We are to forgive as we have been forgiven in Christ. To do otherwise is to declare ourselves more righteous and wise and right than God. Doing that puts us at odds with Him and exempts us from the ability to receive His forgiveness of our sins. That’s not a path we want to walk.

So then, if you are relationally stuck somewhere in your life, ask the hard questions. Is there someone you need to forgive? What’s keeping you from doing that? What do you think you are gaining by refusing? What wounds do you think you are causing the other person in this situation? Was God wrong to declare their sins as forgivable in Christ? If that’s the case, was He also wrong to declare your sins forgivable? After all, you’ve likely been the offender for someone else. Would their refusal to forgive you have been justified? Were they right in insisting to God that your sins weren’t deserving of the forgiveness He has made available to everyone in Christ? The logic here cuts both ways. What would be at stake for you in forgiving the other person, especially now that you better understand both what forgiveness is and what it isn’t? Is withholding forgiveness really worth the ongoing pain it is causing you, not to mention the people around you who will inevitably be impacted by the bitterness unforgiveness will eventually cause in you?

Forgiveness is powerful stuff. If you are in a situation in which you have been offended, it’s time for you to extend some forgiveness. You’ll stay stuck until you do. Forgiveness is your ticket to ride through life once again. The path isn’t easy to walk, but once you do, you’ll be glad that you did.