Forgiveness – The Balm of the Gospel

We sometimes find ourselves wronged by another. It may be unintended or purposeful. It may be small or very significant. It may be easy to forgive or very difficult to overcome. Whatever the offense, when we lack the ability to forgive, we enter the realms of Satan, the fallen son of the morning, who could not forgive his Father and Brother for their rejection of his flawed plan for our salvation. Because of his rancor and hatred, he suffers eternally, as do all of those spirits who supported him in the pre-existence. Holding grudges, festering our souls with hatred, resentment, and bitterness draws us inexorably away from the path that will return us to the presence of our Father and Elder Brother.

In Genesis 19:17, the Lord counseled Lot and his family “Escape for thy life; alook not behind thee.” His counsel was both spiritual and temporal. Lot’s wife suffered because she looked back with desire for all that she was leaving behind. When we look back to the past in nostalgia for what might have been, when we look back with hatred at someone who has wronged us, we suffer both physically and spiritually. This kind of looking back is in diametric opposition to the gospel. The gospel teaches us to look ahead, rather than back at the past. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, in his article, “The Best Is Yet to Be,” (Ensign, Jan 2010, 22–27), says the following:

As a new year begins and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. … look ahead and remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives.
So a more theological way to talk about Lot’s wife is to say that she did not have faith. She doubted the Lord’s ability to give her something better than she already had. Apparently, she thought that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as what she was leaving behind.

Forgiveness is the balm of the gospel. It soothes the feelings of the forgiver and those who are forgiven. It is the only way back to the path that leads to a righteous mortality and an exalted eternity. Forgiving others allows us to look ahead. Elder Boyd K. Packer said in October 1987 General Conference, (see “Balm of Gilead,” Ensign, Nov 1987, 16):

If you brood constantly over a loss or a past mistake, look ahead—settle it.
We call that forgiveness. Forgiveness is powerful spiritual medicine. To extend forgiveness, that soothing balm, to those who have offended you is to heal.

When you forgive, you heal both yourself and the one you forgive. Extend the healing Balm of Gilead to all around you. We are required by the Savior himself to forgive. He said in Doctrine and Covenants 64:9-10:

Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin. I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.

Sometimes, though, forgiveness is difficult. We struggle, because of our mortality, with this eternal principle. In October 2001 General Conference, Elder James E. Faust, in his talk titled “The Atonement: Our Greatest Hope,” (see Ensign, Nov 2001, pg. 18) quoted the following from an article in the February 1997 Ensign, called, “My Journey to Forgiving:”

A sister who had been through a painful divorce wrote of her experience in drawing from the Atonement. She said: “Our divorce … did not release me from the obligation to forgive. I truly wanted to do it, but it was as if I had been commanded to do something of which I was simply incapable.” Her bishop gave her some sound advice: “Keep a place in your heart for forgiveness, and when it comes, welcome it in.” [italics added] Many months passed as this struggle to forgive continued. She recalled: “During those long, prayerful moments … I tapped into a life-giving source of comfort from my loving Heavenly Father. I sensed that he was not standing by glaring at me for not having accomplished forgiveness yet; rather he was sorrowing with me as I wept. [italics added]

Our Savior is always with us. He sorrows with us. He rejoices with us. He binds our wounds. He loves us eternally and without measure. So keep a place in your heart. Take advantage of His Atonement. Look ahead. Forgive and forget. Heal yourself and those around you. Do as the Savior begs you to do – “forgive all men.”