Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - How do you forgive hard things? : follow HIM Favorites

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

Hank Smith and John Bytheway answer a question from Genesis 42-50.Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/episodesFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producers/SponsorsDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: MarketingLisa Spice: Client Relations, Show Notes/TranscriptsJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Rough Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Transcripts/Language Team/French TranscriptsAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-pianoPlease rate and review the podcast.

Hello my friends, welcome to Follow Him Favorites. This year for Come Follow Me, John and I are taking on an individual question for each week's lesson. The lesson this week is the last few chapters of Genesis, John, where Joseph of Egypt does something I think is absolutely incredible. And I'm going to take him that he's genuine and sincere here. He forgives his brothers for selling him so long ago and take you know It's almost as if he's like hey, come on. It's all right. Who hasn't sold the sibling right we all make mistakes And I have had I have had students and friends and even my own you know know, my own family, my own self say through

the years, how do you forgive? How do you forgive these, you know, I'm not talking about little things, my roommate drink my milk, right? You've got to be able to get past things like that. But sometimes people do things that have lasting impact, like like Joseph and his brothers, right? This is, this is serious impact on the rest of your life. And he says, I forgive you. So John, I'm going to throw this right in your lap. How do you counsel others to to forgive these major offenses that come in life? Well, thank you. Forgive me if I don't answer that. You'll have to forgive me for it. I don't know the answer. We can come to a realization which is a good thing that I can't do this without God. I don't have the strength in me to offer this forgiveness. I'm going to have to get outside help. And maybe that's a good thing to realize that. There's so many verses of scripture that we kind of intellectually understand, we have to forgive.

I will forgive whom I will forgive. Of you, it is required to forgive all men or in the Lord's prayer, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors who sin against us. But don't you think that's true? That there are somewhere I think I'm gonna need God's help to be able to let go of this and to move on. Or to hand just say, you take the justice and mercy,

and that's the way I like to look at it. They're still gonna be justice and mercy, but I'm gonna put that into the hands of God and let him do it, and I've gotta move forward. I think that's wise, that at some point you have to say, I'm turning this over to you, I'm gonna have closure on this, and then you keep returning to that closure, right? Because it's going to come back to your mind.

And then you say, well, I handed this over. I handed this over to the Lord a long time ago. And you can keep coming back to that moment of saying, I made a decision, right? I remember Elder Holland says, sometimes you have to forgive and then forgive again. And then forgive again. And then forgive again. So I think the Lord knows this is going to be a process for us. I don't think he's expecting everything that happened right now. Yeah, I don't think it's instantaneous.

I think a lot of us will struggle with that. And that's part of the growth process. Perhaps we finally get to that point where we say, you know what, I've got to turn this over to God because I can't do it myself. Or I need his help to be able to forgive because I don't have the strength in me. So that's probably a good thing.

In Matthew 18, the Savior talks about a man who was forgiven of a big, big debt,000 talent debt an incredible amount right billions of dollars And then the man went out and sought one of his fellow servants who owed him a little bit of money You know a couple thousand dollars. Yeah, and he's really mad and he takes him by the throat Lays hands on him and he says give me what what you owe. And the guy says, I can't, I do it. I please forgive me. And the guy says, you know, I'm going to put you, he puts him in prison.

And then the guy who forgave him of the big debt, it calls him back in. And he says, oh, that wicked servant, right? I forgave the all that debt because that had desired me, right? Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? So there is a moment where the Lord says, look, when I forgive you, I expect you to one, to be thankful for that, to learn from me, learn how quick I am to forgive,

I want you to try to become more like me, right? I want you to practice being like me and that you're be quick to forgive. We both know Chris Williams, right? That incredible story of his family, members of his family being killed by a drunk driver and his decision he said I had to make to forgive or this was going to eat me alive, right? It was going to destroy my life if I couldn't forgive. That's part of this idea of I've got to be, I've got to try this. And one thing

I've learned from that parable is don't go seek out these people and seek revenge, don't stock them on Facebook, don't stock them online, right? Don't go seek them out people and seek revenge, don't stalk them on Facebook, don't, don't, don't stalk them online, right? Don't go seek them out, that's part of forgiveness. Is I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm not trying to seek you out. Maybe it hasn't happened in my heart yet, but my actions are, I'm kind of staying away. Does that make sense? I'm not seeking you out to hurt you. It's kind of just an old saying, I guess, but when we refuse to forgive We burn the bridge over which we ourselves must cross that idea and it's just the scriptures I think we sometimes call it the doctrine of reciprocity of

If you will not forgive neither will your father have him forgive you. It goes both ways. A blessed are the merciful for they shall give you, it goes both ways. A blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. And if I want mercy, I have to be merciful. If I want forgiveness, I have to be forgiving. And that doesn't make it easy. But intellectually, it helps me understand. I've got to, to forgive if I want forgiveness. Yeah.

And we should probably say, John, that forgiving doesn't mean you're going to go put yourself back in a terrible situation or that you'd have to reconcile and that you've got to say, John, that forgiving doesn't mean you're going to go put yourself back in a terrible situation or that you need to reconcile and that you've got to say, hey, come back walking into my life again. If someone were to hurt my family, I can forgive them and not allow them near my family. And that's still forgiveness. The Lord never says forgiveness looks like this, where the two of, I mean, if you can reconcile, that's beautiful, right? We've just discussed Jacob and Esau in our podcast, and that's a beautiful moment where the two come back together again and they can rebuild their relationship.

But sometimes that can't happen, and that's okay. An example, I think of is, Nifi got to a point where, you know, second Nephi 4, lehy dies, second knee five five, I just have to go. There's no reconciling. I have to separate from my family, which must have broken his heart. I mean, maybe lehy said,

keep the family together. I'm maybe knee five tried, and but I just have to go. And he could forgive, but he didn't stay because it was too dangerous. Maybe that's a good example of what you were saying a minute ago. Yeah. You don't bring your family into a bad situation. Oh, because I forgive. You can forgive, but you may need to separate. Maybe that's opening more than we want to tackle right now. But there needs to be boundaries. You're okay to

have boundaries to protect your protectors. Right. I think there's plenty of scriptural basis for that. I'm reminded of President James E. Fowl. Some of the some of our younger listeners won't even remember who that is. But he was one of my favorite speakers when I was a kid. I remember sitting in priesthood meeting in the priest's session and sitting watching him and he had a lot of things that he did, and he did a lot of things that he did, and he did a lot of things that he did, and he did a lot of things that he did, and he did a lot of things that he did, and he did a lot of things that he did, and he did a lot of things that he did,

and he did a lot of things that he did, and he did a lot of things that he did, and he did a lot of things that he did, and he did a lot of things that he did, and he did a lot of things that he did, and he did a lot of things that he did, the terrible, terrible tragedy of these shootings that occurred in a school there and the way they reached out to the family of the shooter to comfort them. This idea of there in a bad place too and we need to help them.

It was a beautiful, beautiful moment really was. That's a really good resource to point people to because that had an impact on me. I remember that talk, especially because he was talking about people who are not of our faith, but people who had power to forgive. That was a great, great one. Yeah, so just remember, I think John,

this is a process, not an event. You might have to forgive over and over and over, but your heart's in the right place. You want this to happen. And like you said, we might need to outsource this a little bit and bring God in and say, I need your help. I can't forgive. You've got to give me, give me help and then, you know, let the Lord do His work. Well, we hope this has been helpful. We want you to come join us on our full podcast. Come join us this week where with Dr. Mike Wilcox

talking about Joseph of Egypt and the incredible person that he became and how he was able to forgive his brothers. If you can't do that, though, that's okay. Come join us next week for another Follow Him favorites. him favorites.