Welcome back to spirituality and mental health. I'm your host Don Mackintosh and we've been talking about forgiveness. And our first section we talked about why it is that we should think about forgiving and what forgiveness actually is. And this section, we're going to look at some strategies that can help us forgive. How can we forgive? Well, number one, I think the most important thing we need to think about and we often don't think about this is strengthening frontal lobe function.

Our frontal lobe that executive part of our brain that differentiates us from animals needs to be strengthened. And there are some studies that link the strengthening of this lobe with the ability to forgive. They did a research on some research focusing on the executive function, leading to forgiveness and they defined this executive function as a group of cognitive control processes working together to regulate and shape behavior, thoughts and feelings in a goal directed manner. In this situation, the goal is forgiveness. They found in four discrete discrete experiments, that the stronger the executive function, the greater the likelihood of forgiveness. The more severe the transgression, the more strongly executive function predicted the likelihood of forgiveness.

In other words, if you can strengthen your frontal lobe, you're going to be more apt to forgive. Wondering why this was the case, they discovered that the link was rumination. In other words, you know, you think about something you chew on it like a cow is a ruminant the two things that you chew on it over and over and over. The more severe the offense, the more intense the rumination and experiments so that executive function promotes forgiveness by being able to control that thought process that rumination bringing it to an end. So in our outpatient program at beautiful minds or wherever you You are, if you're involved in an aggressive exercise program that's going to help you your self control goes up. If you're involved in hydrotherapy treatments where blood flow goes up, because you go from hot water to cold water, that's going to help you if you're involved in eating nutritious food that pushes blood flow to the frontal lobe and make sure your blood sugars in the right place and all the different things we've talked about, that's going to help you if you have light therapy that helps you consolidate serotonin, the happy chemical, that's going to help you if you even have massage, which has been shown to increase serotonin levels as well, that's going to help you.

If all of your omega threes are balanced the fats, the healthy fats you eat are the right place, it's going to help you and this is why strengthening frontal lobe function is something that's essential, you may be more poised to be able to forgive as a result of being in this outpatient program than you ever were before. And you're going to be more poised to stay forgiving as you continue those behaviors as well. So number one, strengthen frontal lobe function number two, strengthen the frontal lobe function through spiritual understanding or how do we stay understanding so it can be understood, it means standing under. So in other words, we see the way we're supposed to do something and we stand under it. Now they have danced around they being the diagnostic manual for treatment of mental issues, a diagnosis called post traumatic embitterment disorder. The clinician, they say in this in this proposed grouping needs to take the basic beliefs values that guide the patient, which have been called in to question by the critical event they need to take into consideration in other words, your spiritual beliefs.

Maybe you were injured, and you say, Where was God, maybe you were injured, and you say, why didn't Jesus help me? Maybe you were injured, you say, why didn't the church step up? So in post traumatic embitterment disorder, the council now is From the research that we should actually talk about the spiritual aspects. Now again, since we live in America, which is largely a Christian nation, at least by percentages even to date, I want to talk about things through a Judeo Christian biblical perspective, taking some text from the Old Testament, and the New Testament. We already studied this in a previous episode, you might want to go back and listen to it if you haven't, and that is, forgiveness is not the absence of anchor, we look at Psalm 109. And we recognize that you can be angry, and that's biblical.

May not be healthy as long as the guy in Psalm, Psalm 109 did it but it's certainly not the absence of anger. Forgiveness is not the absence of anger. And number two, it's not the absence of consequences. In other words, God says, Vengeance is mine. I will repay I'm going to take care of it. But there's another text I like on this psalm 99 verse eight, all Lord our God thou to answer them.

You were forgiving God to them and yet an avenger of their evil deeds. You were a forgiving God, but also an avenger of their evil deeds. Aren't you thankful that he can also forgive and also repay? This is something you can't do? Only God can do it. That's why we talk about the spiritual aspect of things.

Now, what about punishment? does it play an important role in forgiveness? Yes, it does. When you're hurt by someone, you feel vulnerable. And the idea of forgiving actually might make you feel even more vulnerable. But when some punishment is involved, the victim feels more empowered by that and is more able to forgive.

So God is going to repay there is going to be punishment, and that's what allow you to do what forgive. This is the what the research is saying, Now, what is biblical, or spiritual forgiveness, according to a Judeo Christian model. Let's look at it and what I'm reading right now. You can't do you cannot do These things. This is why you need God's help. So this is why we have the spiritual aspect.

Number one is resisting revenge. You can't do that successfully without God. And he says Vengeance is mine, I'll repay. Number two, it's not returning evil for you not possible unless God helps you. Number three, it's blessing those who curse you. That's not easy, but it is possible.

Number four is grieving at their calamities. And number five, it's praying for them. Number six, it's seeking reconciliation, and seven, it's coming to their aid. I remember once a guy got so upset at me in a class, he began to yell at me. He actually picked me up and beat me against the lockers in the school. It was actually a form of assault and battery.

It's I was just critiquing his talk that he had given and he thought that I had done so in a manner that was not acceptable. And I thought about it that afternoon. I said, You know, I probably was a little too harsh. Maybe I'll go and visit him. So I did. I made some bread.

And I took actually was cinnamon rolls as I recall. And I took these cinnamon rolls and I went to the guy's house, and there was a fan blowing there outside 1000 I put the cinnamon rolls next to the partner he was living in. And it went in and I heard, I heard them going, that smells good. And then his wife walked in the door and said, Who are you? And I told her and I said, I'm here to visit so and so. And he said, Why don't you just go right in and so I went in to his room.

And there he was writhing in pain from an injury he sustained by lifting and throwing something that was me. And when I came to his aid, it totally changed things around. So resisting revenge, not returning evil for evil blessing those occur, screaming at their calamities, praying for them seek reconciliation coming to their aid, and then number eight forgiving from the heart. So, in other words, we're now on step three or four. We're understanding what biblical forgiveness is and standing on Hundred, we are strengthening our frontal lobes. Number three rumination, removal and replacement.

Again, rumination is thinking about things again, and again and again. And here's a treatment that's counter intuitive that they've discovered. They gave one group the counterintuitive assignments are right about the benefits of a transgression. They had personally experienced what other groups wrote about the traumatic aspects of the transgression, or about a non transgression topic. What do you suppose happened? Who got better First, the ones that were writing about the benefits of the transgression, those that wrote about the traumatic aspects of the transgression, or someone that wrote about something totally unrelated.

If you guess number one, you were right. writing about the benefits of the transgression actually helped them greatly. Why do you suppose that is? Because when they wrote about the benefits every single time it came back up in their mind, they could think about the benefits, and instead of the bad things and they were able to move on. Now, let's say that you're having a problem with self forgiveness. What they discovered with self forgiveness is that the guilty a person feels more serious the wrong the less he or she is likely to self forgive.

But making amends appeared to help people self forgive. So if I took my little brother's truck that I'm playing with in the sandbox, and I crushed it with a sledgehammer, if I replaced it, I'm better able to self forgive for traumatizing my brother that way. Remember the story of Zacchaeus he was a wee wee little man. And he climbed up at a tree, and he was wanting to see Jesus. And when he saw Jesus, he saw him and he realized how powerful wonderful he was. And he says, you know, I've done a lot of bad things.

It didn't just sat down a lot of bad things. He began to repay all the things he had done bad and as a result was able to self forgive. Number four, and our last four examples of how to stop forgive is to consider examples of forgiveness. Now, since this is a spiritual aspect of the program, and we're identifying with a Judeo Christian audience and others also can listen in, we should think about Christ. He identified with humanity he identified with me and you he became the same flesh and blood entered into the same genetics and he suffered the same temptations. So how many think that's amazing, he knows what we're feeling he knows what we need to experience or forget.

And number two, then he came and died in my place in our place. In other words, for all the bad things we did, he came in and offered his own self and he was able to finish things he said on the cross it has finished now a story that illustrates that Chuck Colson tells the story of a group of people that were out during World War Two during the Nazi they were in a Nazi death camp or camp, and they were out repairing things and Had shovels and they were repairing things. And when they came back, they counted the shovels because they didn't want them to turn upon them with the sellers, and they had 20 people that came back and there was only 19, shovels. They said, Who stole the shovel? No one would confess to it. So they said, you all line up and you're all going to be shot.

So they all lined up to be shot. And they then a young man said, Wait a minute, wait a minute, I stole it. And so they let the others go free and they shot this young man, I believe he's only 18 years old. The next morning, they got up, they count on the shelves again, guess how many there were? There were 20 shovels, not 19 they had miscounted. And so that boy actually had come forward and confess to doing something he never did.

He identified with doing something bad when he had done nothing bad and he was killed, and all the others were able to live as a result of his self sacrifice. This is basically the Christian story in embryo as well. Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as he does. With his stripes, we are healed. Ephesians written by the Apostle Paul says this Be kind to one another tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ for gave you. So this is the story of the cross.

And this is what motivates many Christians. But let me tell you another story, not just the story of Christ Himself, but those who have accepted Him. Joyce Meyers was abused hundreds of times by her father, when she was growing up, and she didn't know what to do. And our friend said, you need to accept Christ and you need to become a Christian. This is the only way out. So she did.

But she struggled thinking about what her father had done and her father never admitted to doing anything wrong. Finally, even though he had not done that she felt convicted, I still need to be involved in my father's life. She brought him furniture, she bought him a house, he lived near him to take care of him. He got sick, went into the hospital and was near death. And still he had never admitted to doing Anything wrong. He went into she went in to visit him on and knew that he might die soon and went home and found herself that night strangely praying for him that he would live.

He did live he went home two or three weeks later, he called her to his bedside, he says, I can't believe you've given me furniture, you bought me a house, you've taken care of me. You visited me in all this time, I never admitted doing anything. And then he finally admitted that he had done all these things to her and he said this, these shocking words, you know, I don't know how it is you can have this forgiveness. And I have done such terrible things. And somehow you forgiven me, I want to know the gods, you know. And so she had the privilege of seeing him baptized and coming to admit what he had done wrong along with her mother, which he had been silent during these years as well.

What a powerful example forgiveness this can happen with her, maybe can happen with you if you've been abused. If you're gonna happen with you if you've gone through terrible situations, and the love of Christ constrains us It says in Second Corinthians, and because of his constraining love, we don't have to ask act like another option. A guy named Simon Wiesenthal, he wrote a book called the sunflower, where he talks about a Jew who came into a German soldier who asked him a Jew to come in, and forgive him for all the things that had been done by the German soldiers to the Jews, and he would not forgive him. And he asked him the book, should you forgive him? Should anyone have forgiven him? And his whole point was no, we shouldn't do that any hunted Nazi war criminals his whole life consumed with getting vengeance for all the atrocities.

Now, you and I both agree that across these atrocities should be paid for, but God is the one that put in charge of it according to the Judeo Christian scriptures. But I want to Give this final example to you before we close and this is the story of Cory Tembo. I want you to listen in, as you listen to her talking about forgiveness and his growth. We can accept suffering as a part of God's plan for this world. When I was in the concentration camp, one of the most terrible things I had to go through was that distributors of all our growth and we had to stand. The first guy, it was the worst I said, Betsy, I cannot bear this.

And certainly it was spy song. Jesus as the cross and the bible tells the police garments, he hanged in naked. And I knew he hadn't been for me for my sins and my suffering. I don't have the friction of the suffering of Jesus Christ made me so that I could bear my suffering. So amazing. So divine, the events, my life my thoughts, my so people are afraid to look at the cross, or you don't be afraid to cross establish it's terrible how Jesus civic Not to describe.

But you must not afraid to look at it. For if you had been the only person in the world he should have suffered for your sins as a criminal crops, the crops for the light and the burden of a syndrome away by face, I have seats my side and no I have guidance every day. It was some time ago that I was in Berlin and they came up to me and said, Mr. Boom, I am glad to see you. Doing suddenly I saw that was one of the most God is constantly in concentration camp. Amen. I know Christy and I have found the Lord Jesus.

I read my Bible and I know that there is forgiveness for all the sins of the whole world also for my sins, I have forgiveness for the cruelties I have done. But then I have God's grace for the opportunity that I could ask one of my fellow victims forgiveness and for them to move on SR forgiven, you forgive me and I could not. I remember the suffering of my dying system. Which when I saw when I explained that I could not forgive. Suddenly I knew I myself has no forgiveness. We know that kids When you do a little twinkle in the eye, my Heavenly Father will not forgive you.

And you're not ready for Jesus, because I have no forgiveness for my sins. Then I took one of these beautiful texts, one of these resources rule 155, the love of God brought into our hearts through the Holy Spirit was given to us. And I said, that cue head brought into my heart, God's love through the Holy Spirit was given to me. And thank you than my hatred for that same moment. And I could see in your head when I shook hands with him and the process. You'll never take the essential part powerful story she writes about this in a book and says this and it kind of encapsulates how to forgive which we've been covering.

I still stood there with coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion. I knew that too. In other words, we talked about frontal lobe functioning, not just the midbrain emotions, forgiveness is an act of the will remember how we talked about the frontal lobe needs to be structuring so that I will statement can be made and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart help I prayed. I can lift my hand I can do that much you supply the feeling and so woodenly mechanically I thrust my hand into the one stressed out to me and as I did, and incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder race down my arm then sprang into our join hands and feeling this healing warm theme to flood.

Then this feeling of healing warp seemed to flood my whole being bringing tears to my eyes. I forgive you, brother, I cried with all my heart. If torque Cory tiempo could forgive someone who had done those things. Do you think the same guy could help you forgive helped me forgive? What a powerful example of forgiveness we have in this story. on closing, I just want to say that I found a quote and I was looking for pictures on the Internet of ships that were stranded.

After about an hour later, I had all these pictures of various ships that have been stranded, big ships, small ships, little ships, fat ships, skinny ships, all kinds of ships. But I found it because I wanted to go with this quote, God's love. His forgiveness is like a tide that comes in and raises every stranded ship. I don't know what your situation is. I know what mine was, and many times has been. And I want to tell you this, that there's some things you can do, but some things only God can do.

But when his love comes in when it's poured into your heart, like it was with Corrie 10 booms, his forgiveness is like a tie that comes in and can raise every stranded ship.