Forgive and forget.

For the longest time, I never questioned that phrase. I thought it was the absolute truth, and I tried to apply it in many instances of my life where I’ve been wronged.

But I’d be lying if I told you I no longer remember the pain. After all, the scar will always be there, right? You are never the same after the incident.

The other day I was scrolling through my Facebook and read a post that said that the Bible doesn’t support that quote, but actually teaches us to “forbear and forgive”.

This stopped me on my tracks and I read further.

“To forbear means to sustain, to bear, to endure”. 

It was a light-bulb realization for me. Of course… of course. When we love a person, and they hurt us, we’ll never truly forget the pain they caused us. But we don’t burn the bridge and add them to our blacklist. Instead, we forbear. And we forgive. We no longer hold it against them, nor use it as a weapon for future arguments.

We forbear, and forgive.

Forbearing is an action, a choice to be made. It is intentional. And this is what Jesus commands us Christians to do in Colossians 3:13.

“Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.”

Forbearing and forgiving teach us humility – that we too are not perfect, prone to sin, and were just forgiven by Jesus. We can’t hold ourselves superior over those who hurt us because we too have wronged other people and relied on their good heart to overlook our faults. 

So we may not forget, but we should forbear and forgive.