Three inner needs

Purple amethyst geode

“God created . . . each of us with three inner needs- needs for love, significance, and security.”- June Hunt

In Chapter 13 (“The Power of the Empty Bag- Fringe Benefits of Forgiveness”) of How to Forgive, June Hunt writes that only God can completely satisfy our three inner needs.  When we are able to recognize our inability to fully satisfy our needs, we can wisely accept God’s perfect provision.  Only God’s perfect provision will bring us God’s perfect peace.

Ms. Hunt tells us that geodes are magnificent crystals capable of forming inside any cavity beneath the earth’s surface.  While the exterior simply looks like a dull, rough rock, a slow and steady dripping of minerals inside one of those cavities, over time, becomes a sea of sparkling quartz.  June describes what it is like to harbor, then release, unforgiveness:

“When you harbor unforgiveness within you, it’s like shutting out the dripping of minerals that can create beautiful quartz crystals.  But when you release your unforgiveness to God and begin to pray for your offender, an amazing transformation occurs- God begins to produce shining character traits in you.”

Because forgiveness is powerful, purposeful, and pervasive, June discusses five benefits we experience when we forgive.  The first is presented today.

1.  Forgiveness leads to better health.  June states  she is amazed how many Christians compare forgiveness to being force-fed a dose of bad-tasting medicine, say castor oil.  Yet, unforgiveness can have profoundly negative effects on the way your body functions.  Forgiveness truly is the perfect prescription for wellness, enabling you to seize God’s gift of abundant life.  Brenda Goodman wrote in Psychology Today:

“If physical exercise had a mental equivalent, it would probably be the process of forgiveness.”

Today’s question: How have you been able to release your unforgiveness to God and satisfy your three inner needs?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “A change of heart”

 

 

Three inner needs

Real forgiveness

“When the offense is severe, forgiveness does not happen easily.  Real forgiveness is a slow, difficult, painful process.”- June Hunt

In Chapter 8 (“Rocks Aren’t Removed Overnight- The Four Stages of Forgiveness”) of How to Forgive, June Hunt states that while forgiveness ultimately is freeing, typically forgiveness is not fast.  Boulders of bitterness cannot be simply tossed aside, as if they were small pebbles.  Ms. Hunt explains the consequences of taking shortcuts to forgiveness:

” . . . the pain and anguish you’re experiencing is perfectly normal, even healthy.  When people take shortcuts through the forgiveness process, they are merely putting Band-Aids on deep wounds.  It doesn’t work, and real healing never happens.  Deep wounds must heal from the inside out.”

June notes that because the pain of rejection runs deep, you must realize that rejection is just one step away from resentment.  Resentment, then, is the result of an unforgiving heart.  While you may feel like a forgotten cobblestone on the river bed of life, be assured that God hasn’t forgotten you.  June encourages us that whenever the pain of unforgiveness burdens you:

” . . . give those stones of hostility- those stones of scorn- to the Master Paver.  Amazing benefits await you.  When in His hands, He knows what to do with them and where to put them.  He puts them in the right places on His path . . . so that each and every painful experience has eternal purpose.”

June states you will find it helpful to work through a four-stage process of forgiveness.  Each progression is a series of decisions with actions that build on each other.  In the next blog, June will begin by explaining the necessity of ridding yourself of the toxicity of unforgiveness.

Today’s question: How is it helpful to understand real forgiveness as a process or progression rather than as an instantaneous fix?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Poisonous rocks of resentment”

Real forgiveness

Barriers to forgiveness

As June Hunt continues Chapter 5 of How to Forgive, she lists some of the most common barriers to forgiveness.  Of the twelve barriers June lists, three caught my attention:

• believing that bitterness is a required response to betrayal– “God knows my feelings are normal”


• requiring an apology or show of repentance– “He shouldn’t be forgiven because he’s not really sorry”


• feeling a sense of power by hanging on to unforgiveness– “He needs to see how wrong he is”

Ms. Hunt states that these stones of animosity can block forgiveness and burden us down.  June adds that she has heard two additional rationales so often they warrant further explanation.  The firs rationale is discussed today.

1.  “It wouldn’t be fair.”  The issue of justice is at the heart of this statement.  It seems that our need for justice is so strong and natural, while the idea of forgiveness is so difficult and unnatural.  June believes there are three reasons for this:

a.  God has instilled within every heart a sense of right and wrong.  Because everyone has a God-given conscience, we feel a need for justice when someone mistreats us.

b.  Based on the law, forgiveness seems inappropriate.  While a black-and-white , law-and-order system seems controllable  and quantifiable, the very essence of Christianity is grace.  June adds that “individually we are to extend mercy.  We are to leave individual justice to God.”

c.  We feel outraged when justice is denied.  Everyone cries for justice- except the guilty person waiting to receive justice(emphasis author’s).  Ms. Hunt finds it ironic that we plead for justice when we have been wronged, yet plea for mercy when we’ve done wrong.  She states this double standard may be human nature, but it sabotages a forgiving spirit.

Today’s question: What stones of animosity have been barriers to forgiveness for you?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: the new Short Meditation, “Like little children”

Barriers to forgiveness

Reshaping a hardened heart

In Chapter 2 (“The School of Hard Rocks: Reshaping a Hardened Heart”) of How to Forgive, June Hunt speaks of reshaping a hardened heart- hers.  Ms. Hunt describes her father as hard as flint with a hair-trigger temper.  Although her father was recognized as a visionary business leader, at home the family walked on eggshells due to his oppression.

June, her mother, and three siblings were her father’s covert family.  Unbeknownst to June’s mother when she became romantically involved with June’s father, he was a married man with six children.  His perpetual pummeling included verbal and mental abuse.  At the age of fifteen, June researched and then proposed murdering her father to her mother.  Thankfully, mother’s cooler head prevailed.

When June became a Christian, she was surprised that “Christ inside me started changing me from the inside out.”  Yet even though she knew the biblical command to love one another as well as our enemies, she truly believed her situation was a legitimate exception and that God understood.  June only had one problem: God’s holy standard is to hate no one- and June wasn’t an exception.  The standard applies to all.

June explains reshaping a hardened heart:

“Unforgiveness can make you heart hard and dark like flint, and over time, you can amass enough bitterness to build an impenetrable wall around your soul.  But when you surrender your hardened heart to the Master Stonecutter, He reshapes your heart to look like His– sensitive to the needs of others . . . . By releasing the flint into His hands- the flint of unforgiveness- He will reshape your hardened heart and make it like his.”

Today’s question: What Scriptures have guided and strengthened you to give you a forgiving heart?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Confusion about forgiveness”

Reshaping a hardened heart

Gripping the past

“If you live gripping the past, you will forfeit you future.  Adversity can either make you bitter or better.”- Charles Stanley

In today’s blog, Charles Stanley completes his discussion of six common idols we often hold too tightly.

5.  The past.  Dr. Stanley states in no uncertain terms that the past is one of the most destructive idols of all.  This happens when we fixate on the people who have hurt us or we harbor unforgiveness.  If our pain turns to bitterness and unforgiveness, we have reached a dangerous point.  We begin to suspect the Lord’s motives, fearfully expecting more trials or further wounding.

Our past becomes an idol when we trust our experiences more than we believe in God.  We don’t have to allow this to happen.  Our adversity can be a bridge to a deeper relationship with the Father if we set our heart to trust Him.

6.  Hobbies.  While hobbies and preferred forms of entertainment aren’t necessarily wrong in themselves, there is a problem if they grab more of our attention than the Lord does.  Even ‘harmless’ activities and pastimes can consume us, Dr. Stanley writes.  Hobbies have no capacity to diminish our profound feelings of emptiness, exile, or worthlessness following our vocation loss.

Today’s question: Which of Dr. Stanley’s six common idols resonate most with you?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “God’s workmanship”

Gripping the past