The Madness of Unforgiveness: They Don’t Know How Deeply They Hurt You

by David Chadwick

Let me give you another insight that will help you better understand the madness of unforgiveness. Most people don’t know how deeply they hurt you.

I know this sounds crazy to say, but generally speaking, most offenses will feel far more intense to the person who experienced the offense.

RT Kendall, an incredible theologian who wrote the book Total Forgiveness, estimates in his book that 80% of the people who hurt you don’t have a clue how badly they have wronged you. They may know some of it, but don’t fully understand the depth of your pain.

Perhaps that’s why in Luke 23:34 Jesus said on the cross, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.” He gave a plea that was full of compassion - a blanket call to forgiveness for all those who nailed him to the cross! From the Pharisees, to Pilate, to the mobs, to the Romans, Jesus asked the Father to give them all the gift of forgiveness. Did they truly understand that they were crucifying the Son of God?

If you really sit back and think about this for a moment, this is wildly incomprehensible. The kindness and compassion to not just beg his Father to forgive his enemies, but to acknowledge that these people killing him didn’t actually know what they were doing. It’s amazing!

What about those who clearly knew what they were doing when they hurt you? Per RT Kendall’s earlier mentioned statistic, the 20% who were fully aware of the pain they were inflicting on you? I wish there was a way out of forgiveness for these people, but there is not. We are still called to forgive them. Release them to God. Surrender our pain to him.

Why? Well, mostly for our benefit. For our health. We were not made to carry around anger and bitterness. We are to forgive as we’ve been forgiven (Ephesians 4:32). In that posture, we find freedom to live as Jesus desires all of us to live. Not as prisoners of bitterness, but free in every way.

If Jesus could forgive his murderers and state they did not know what they were doing, surely we can find forgiveness for those who knowingly wound us.