A True Story of Forgiveness & Its Fruits
By Woodrow Kroll
Sometimes, the best way to understand something is to see it working. You'll see forgiveness in action today. We've spent our week looking at forgiveness, what it means, what the Bible teaches, how it works, and what results we can expect. And now we want to see it in action. With the help of a real life story, I think you'll get a better understanding of what it takes to both forgive and seek forgiveness in the way that God desires.
If we forgive the way the Bible says we should, if we seek forgiveness the way the Bible says we should, there ought to be some benefits, both to being forgiven and being the forgiver, as we saw yesterday. Today, I want to relate a true story of forgiveness, and the fruit that it brings. I think this story is going to touch your heart, friends. I think it also will demonstrate to all of us some of the lasting lessons about what real forgiveness is.
This is a story that comes from the book, Hope Grows in Winter. It's a book that I edited with George Miller III. And this chapter is written by Dr. Robert Lightner. Dr. Lightner is a Professor Emeritus from Dallas Seminary in Dallas, Texas. He tells this story in a first-person way. I simply want to relate Dr. Lightner's story to you today.
He says that July 1, 1992, was a very normal day in the Tarrant County Courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas. Prosecutors and defense attorneys all expected to win their cases. No one anticipated witnessing a blood bath.
At about 10:00 A.M., George Douglas Lott walked into the fourth-floor courtroom of the Second Court of Appeals. Lott was neatly dressed. He had a briefcase in his hand. He found a seat and he settled in. And after a few minutes, George Lott quietly opened his briefcase. He pulled out a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun and he fired at random.
In just a few minutes, Chris Marshall, a Tarrant County assistant district attorney, lay dead. A Mr. Conder and appellate judges John Hill and Clyde Ashworth were seriously wounded. John Edwards, who was only 33 at the time, was a Dallas attorney. John Edwards ran from the room when the shooting began. But George Lott, the gunman, reloaded, chased John Edwards into a stairwell, and shot him dead.
Well, needless to say, a lot of hopes and dreams were shattered that day. George Lott did what commentators on WFAA-TV called a "horrible, horrible thing." Could the families of Chris Marshall and John Edwards ever look into Lott's face without hatred? Could anyone find hope and forgiveness?
You know, forgiveness is vital to the human condition. We human beings cannot relate to God without forgiveness. And that's because God is sinless; we are not. But it's equally true that we can't successfully relate to one another unless we are forgiving, as well. No human relationship exists very long without tension. Conflict, inflicted pain, misunderstanding, alienation, hurt feelings--these are all parts of life, friends. If you're not experiencing one or more of these right now, likely they are just around the corner.
Well, let me get back to Dr. Lightner's story. Lightner says that the need to find hope and forgiveness was most dramatically demonstrated to him in the case of George Lott. His trial was brief because Lott, who was a University of Texas law school graduate and a former lawyer, insisted on defending himself. Dr. Lightner was serving as interim pastor at Calvary Presbyterian Church in Fort Worth. Nancy Lott, George Lott's mother, was an active member there. She was in church the morning the headlines announced the decision of the Amarillo jury that her son should die by lethal injection. It took the jury only about an hour to convict him on February 12, 1993.
Robert Lightner says that it was through Nancy that he came to be George's friend. Twice he spoke to George Lott in the Fort Worth jail before his trial. Lott and he sat together in a small, heavily guarded room and they talked. Robert Lightner says George never denied doing what he was accused of doing or that he was in his right mind when he did it. Lott also assured Dr. Lightner that, despite his horrible crime, he had genuinely trusted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior years before.
Well, one day Lott confided in Robert Lightner that the events that led up to the courtroom killings were difficult events. He had gone through a divorce. A court in another state had awarded custody of his young son to his former wife. He insisted this court and the jury were prejudiced against him, and no one would listen to him. George Lott took out his anger and his bitterness on innocent people, people who simply represented the justice system that, in George's mind, had let him down. If anyone ever had need of forgiveness, it was George Lott.
Now, let me just say, folks, that the concept of forgiveness is not found in most religions. The Hindu, for example, know much about morality, much about devotion, but Hinduism does not make provision for forgiveness. Among the religions, only the God of the Bible completely forgives sin. Our God is the God of hope. Our God is the God of forgiveness. He brings hope to the hopeless and help to the helpless. You don't find that kind of god in other religions, but that's the kind of God you're going to find in the Bible. And friends, that's the kind of God George Lott found as well.
A missionary to Alaska once told me that the Eskimo language has no word for forgiveness. In fact, he says the closest word means not being able to think about it again. You know what I think, that's a pretty good definition of forgiveness. To forgive is a choice, folks. It's a choice you make, not to hurt the one who has hurt you. It's a choice to cancel that person's debt to you, to forgive it freely and graciously with no strings attached. That's a choice you have to make. It's a choice you have to make in your life almost every day. Some people don't make that kind of choice.
I remember hearing a story of former Russian premier, Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev once said to American journalists, "We communists have many things in common with the teachings of Jesus Christ. My sole difference with Christ is that when someone hits me on the right cheek, I hit them on the left so hard that his head falls off." Well, so much for the concept of forgiveness.
Martha Edwards is the widow of John Edwards, the man who was shot in that hallway that day. She was left without a loving husband to raise her three small boys. Martha Edwards told Dr. Robert Lightner that she had forgiven George Lott. Now, that wasn't easy, and I'm sure it wasn't easy for her to do. It took time for her to reach the point where she could forgive her husband's murderer. And at first she lived with the despair that results from hopelessness. Eventually though, forgiveness replaced her anger and her bitterness. Martha said that when she forgave, she discovered hope again, hope that she and her three boys could go on with their lives. See, folks, forgiveness did not bring her husband back, but it did free her from the bondage of bitterness and give her the gift of hope.
Now, not many of us have been grieved as was Martha Edwards. Not many of us have had a loved one murdered. Some of you have, but not many. But other wrongs are very real, others are exceedingly painful, whether they involve the actions of a spouse, or a child, or perhaps a betraying friend, someone who promised to love you forever and then reneged on that vow. You and I can endure a lifetime of pain without bringing closure, closure to the hostilities against those who have disappointed us. It takes courage to do what Martha Edwards did--to enjoy the freedom of forgiveness and rekindle hope in your heart and in your life.
Now, I need to point out to you today, that there are three steps necessary in forgiving, three steps that Martha Edwards took. First of all, we need to face the facts. We need to acknowledge the wrongdoing and then reaffirm love. Secondly, we need to release the past. We need to let it go, friends. We need not to live in the past. But thirdly, we need to forgive the person who has done wrong to us. See, if we fail to take any of these steps, we not only fail to forgive, we also fail to rise out of the quagmire of hopelessness that engulfs those who have hurt us. But if we take all three steps, these three steps can lead to hope in your life.
Let's think about them individually.
Number one, face the facts. The road to forgiveness begins with the acknowledgment that the offense was committed and it was committed to us. It's perfectly normal to see the other party as the offender, the guilty one, isn't it? And the other party may, in fact, be the primary one responsible. Let's face it, George Lott was guilty of killing John Edwards; he admitted it, and Martha Edwards knew it. This was indeed a one-sided justice. But God helped Martha to the place of forgiveness. Oh sure, Lott pulled the trigger. John Edwards died. But Martha Edwards forgave.
Such obvious one-sided injustices, probably, are very rare in our society. We occasionally witness one-way violations in which one person is obviously the offender and the other the offended. But when pain exists in relationships within our families, within your friendships, at work, in other communities, it's a rare thing indeed, isn't it, when more than one party does not contribute to that difficulty. It generally takes two to generate a hurt. And that's why it's so important that you and I recognize that we not only seek forgiveness, but we give forgiveness.
See, if we're to find hope in forgiveness, we have to accept that nothing is to be gained by pointing the finger of blame. We have to be willing to see our own culpability. Now, this man John Edwards did nothing. He was not culpable at all. He's not to be blamed at all. And neither was Martha Edwards. But that's rare in society, isn't it? We dare not, friends, we dare not tone down the seriousness of the problem nor put a guilt trip on some other person. In talking with that other person, the one who has hurt you, we should simply accept our share of the blame rather than bring up that other person's share. See, it's not much fun assigning blame, but if you really want there to be hope in your life, you have to take a look at what your role is in all of this. And your role may be to reaffirm love, not to assign blame.
I said there are three steps in dealing with forgiveness in our lives. And the first step is the step of facing the facts. Sometimes the people who have hurt us the worst have hurt us because we have hurt them. Face those facts, and you'll become forgiving, too.
Now secondly, after we face the facts, the second thing we have to do in dealing with forgiveness is we have to release the past. You know, we often hang on to the past resentments because our anger has not yet been satisfied. And even when the past seems to be fading, we try to keep it in our grasp, isn't that true? We want our demands met and we want to get even. Can you imagine what would have happened in the story that Robert Lightner tells if Martha Edwards wanted to get even--an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? You see, when such attitudes prevail, we will not be able to give or to experience forgiveness.
Ah, friends, listen, the past cannot be undone. The unchangeable cannot be changed. You can't go back and turn time backward and deal with the past. Cruel, hurtful words cannot be returned. Husbands and fathers who have been abusive cannot go back and take back that abuse. George Lott murdered John Edwards; they could not go back and undo that. What God would have us to do instead of going back to the past, what God would have us to do, He exhorted the Hebrew Christians to do, He said, "Let us press on to maturity" (Heb. 6:1). See, if we hold back and hold on to our grudges, we can't move ahead toward reconciliation.
And since the past can't be changed or undone, we have to give our demands related to the past, over to God. As best as we can, we have to let the past go. David Augsburger said it so well in his book. He said:
"Forgiveness is willingly accepting the other on the basis of loving and leveling, of our caring and confronting, agreeing to be genuine with each other here, now and in the future. Forgiveness is being willing to let it be with the best that we can achieve now and to move on into the future."
Now, I think that's important folks. Forgetting past injustices does not necessarily mean wiping them out of our minds. That's likely not going to happen. It does mean letting go of the hurt, releasing it to God, moving on toward completeness in Christ. You can't forgive and forget, but you can forgive and forsake. Don't beat yourself up by remembering. Don't beat yourself up by not doing what you can't do. Hold yourself accountable for doing what you must do.
See, there's hope in forgiving others, but not if we cling tightly to the hurt that they've caused us. Martha Edwards could never forget what George Lott did to her husband, but she could forgive him and she could let it go. And the only hope she had to restore sanity to her broken world was the hope of forgiveness. And if you're still holding on to the hurt after you've forgiven, take a second look at whether or not you've really forgiven the one who hurt you. See, this is the hope of forgiveness; there is nothing but pain in unforgiveness. And therein lies the choice.
When you forgive, you in no way change the past, but you sure do change the future. And that's the third thing we have to think about in dealing with forgiveness. Number three, facing the future. Let go of the past, but face the future.
Reaching out to the future may make us fearful, but my friend, it has to be done. It must be done in order for forgiveness to be meaningful and for hope to be restored in your life. Reaching out gives you freedom to forgive. It shows the offending party that you're extending trust, that you're giving the relationship another chance. Let me come back to Robert Lightner's story. Forgiveness gave Martha Edwards an opportunity to be strengthened in her faith and to grow in her likeness to Christ.
You know, when Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians, he was not dealing with the issue of forgiveness. But he did relate to his readers how he viewed his own life as a believer. And what he said, I think, illustrates what we have just said about the past, the present, and the future. The apostle said he was forgetting the past, both as an educated Jew and as a persecutor of Christians. You can read about it in Philippians 3:4-7. And then, he affirmed what was true in the present--Christ Jesus was his Lord and he was found in Him, (vv. 8-10). And then thirdly, Paul said he was reaching out to the future. See, he had not yet attained, he was not yet perfect, but he was pressing on to whatever was ahead, (vv. 12-16).
And that same apostle reviewed the same three steps for the Corinthian believers in 2 Corinthians 5:11-21. Here too he wrote of what the past was, what he had in Christ Jesus, and what his responsibility would be in the future.
You see, there are three steps necessary for forgiving. One is you have to face the facts, acknowledge what happened, don't try to hide it. Number two, you have to release the past, get rid of it, walk away from it. And number three, you have to face the future. You have to forgive the person who did the worst possible thing in the world to you.
George Lott's unforgiving spirit led to his bitterness. And that bitterness led to murder--the murder of innocent people. But you know what? Martha Edwards was undoubtedly devastated by her loss and her hurt. Her husband John was dead. She alone was totally responsible for rearing those three young boys, and she struggled. She plunged into deep night of winter, but relief came to her. Because hope was alive. Keeping hope alive, friends, comes through forgiveness.
And if you have someone you need to forgive today, learn from this true story--the story of Martha Edwards, who learned to forgive the man who murdered her husband, because she faced up to the facts, she released the past, she walked arm in arm with the Lord Jesus into a hopeful future. You can do the same. And you can do it today.
By Woodrow Kroll
www.backtothebible.org
Copyright �1996-2001 The Good News Broadcasting Association, Inc.
All rights reserved.