Here’s Why Forgiveness Is Worth It—Even When It Costs Us

Many of my counseling clients hold a specific tension: they understand forgiveness is a healthy part of their journey but simultaneously nurture resistance to it. Unforgiveness sits heavy on our hearts but addressing it requires sacrifice. Haven’t we paid enough already?

The Debt

The language of forgiveness invokes the concept of debt. When I can identify who hurt me and how deeply, I can name the debt. Now, I am owed a reckoning.

Many of the “debts” owed us are impossible to quantify, however. What, exactly, can satisfy this debt? What do I need from someone in order to forgive? An apology? That can certainly help. Change? That feels like repentance and sounds like a step in the right direction. Complete accountability and atonement? We have officially entered murky waters here.

Our separate experiences and circumstantial contexts make it often impossible to assess what is owed. The wound may not match the infraction, or the situation may be too nuanced to grasp. For example, I may have inconsiderately cut you off in traffic, causing you to be late to work and lose your job (but I was distracted and running late for my job). Maybe you show up on Sunday, giving church one last chance after a decade of avoidance, and found my demeanor to be unwelcoming (but I had argued with my mother earlier and was feeling defeated). Maybe I did not respond to you the way you needed when you were hurting (but I was barely hanging on myself). These wounds I have caused are real and deserve a reckoning. Are we really capable of accurately assessing the debt, though? God is infinitely better suited for this job than we are.

The Entitlement

When we have been wounded, we have, in a sense, paid for our pain. Our wounds are real, deep, and justifiable. We have a claim to our suffering.

The world-at-large can champion suffering, rewarding us for our pain. It can be the membership card that gets us in exclusive rooms and conversations. It can be my free pass to not speak to you, never date again, leave church altogether, or stop trusting. It can be my reason to be disgruntled, unreachable, distant. The world will accommodate my suffering and, for many of us, this can be an entitlement too valuable to tamper with. At worst, it can be sanctioned dysfunction.

The Cost

This is where sacrifice begins. I need to humbly admit my inability to assess the debt that is owed. I know well the depth of my wound but not what’s ultimately behind people’s choices and behaviors. I need to abdicate my right to name the debt by laying it at God’s feet. Lord, you see it all. I relinquish my need to be the judge.

It is not enough that I need to hand over the assessment to God, but I also need to name Him the collector. For me, this is the bigger hurdle. I don’t know that I can wipe the slate between us clean on my own. I need to lay my entitlement to exact what is owed me at the altar. This is forgiveness. I relinquish my right to earthly atonement, entrusting it instead to the only one who can accurately, gracefully, and dependably reckon with my pain and your heart. God can, and will, settle all accounts.

The cost of forgiveness is letting go of my entitlement to nurture the hurt, anger, and resentment that comes with damage. It is important to note that there are natural consequences for causing pain, such as legal ramifications or responsive boundaries, especially in cases where there is no acknowledgement of wrongdoing. We need to protect ourselves. And we need to be free.

Ours is the God that reckons and sets us free. The biblical mandate to forgive is not justified simply because it is the right thing to do, but because it is good for us. God wants us free from bitterness, resentment, and fear. He does not want us to retreat from creation, but to meet it with wonder and curiosity. The blessings found there are worth the cost of forgiveness.