Forgiveness
I made choices back when I honestly did not know any better, and I still hold them against myself. How do I stop?
“Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.”
Joseph finally reveals himself to the brothers who sold him into slavery, and his first concern is that they should not be angry with themselves. It is an extraordinary thing to say from the one person with every right to accuse. The man who was most damaged is the one arguing for their release from self-condemnation. Being harder on yourself than the injured party is not actually humility.
“Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.”
Paul, writing to a younger colleague, describes his own record without softening it: he hunted Christians down. Then he adds that he did it ignorantly, in unbelief, and that he obtained mercy. He does not use his ignorance to excuse himself, and he does not refuse the mercy either. Both things are allowed to stay true in the same sentence.
A path forward
Write down what you actually knew at the time, not what you know now. Judging your younger self with today's information is not honesty, it is cruelty.
Confess the part that was genuinely wrong, specifically and once, then let that confession stand. Repeating it is not deeper repentance.
Do one thing this week that your younger self would not have known how to do, and let that stand as evidence that something has actually changed.
Closing verse
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
- Isaiah 1:18
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