It’s not until you’ve been royally screwed over by someone that you realize how impossible it is to forgive. It’s downright unnatural, like taking a bath with your cat. For Christians, most of us believe it is our obligation and duty to rush headlong into forgiveness the moment we are betrayed, as Jesus modeled for us in the gospels. But the reality is not always quite so immediate. It seems as if we humans are wired instinctively to do the opposite of forgiveness. Our first instinct is more like nursing a grudge, or getting sweet revenge, or spreading malicious gossip, than heaping up lovingkindness on our enemy. Christian or not, the call to forgiveness can be quite daunting. But we move forward, we pray, we ruminate, we persist with God, and eventually, hopefully, we learn how to forgive.

Rarely does anyone experience forgiveness in one fell swoop. It unravels in discreet stages, by small degrees, over time. It’s like throwing your feelings and your spiritual life into a slow cooker with the vile perpetrator who wronged you and letting it stew: sometimes it takes a while before it’s edible, let alone tasty.

I know first-hand about this, because I was recently trespassed against.

You may be familiar with this phrase from the version of the Lord’s Prayer that says, “Forgive us our trespassers as we forgive those who trespass against us.” There is another version employing the word “debtors” instead of trespassers. But I prefer the trespassing version because, as far as I’m concerned, someone who trespasses against me presents a far more serious violation than simply having a debtor. “Trespassing” reminds me of the old TV Westerns with the hillbilly pointing a gun from his front porch hollering: “Hey ya varmint! Git off o’ my property or I’ll blow a hole plum through ya!” The trespassing account conjures up images of someone actually trampling all over me with big, dirty, muddy boots…not just on my land or my property, but over my person and my spirit and my very sensitive soul. A debtor, on the other hand, sounds more like some kind of slacker who just can’t get his act together to pay me back the $100 bucks I fronted for tickets to the Springsteen concert. It just doesn’t sound as bad.

So I was “trespassed against.” I still have the muddy footprints on my back to prove it. And now I’ve got a forgiveness problem.

Without going into details, let’s just say that there was an incident with one of my colleagues at work; a friend, actually, turned on me. He publicly iced me out in the presence of a very influential group of peers by making hostile and antagonistic comments directed specifically at me to establish his superiority regarding a certain situation by diminishing me. He was engaging in the familiar practice known throughout the business world as “corporate politics.” I was humiliated. And it stung. It still does.

When this sort of thing happens—when I feel that sense of violation of trust, betrayal, or outright hurt—it is hard to just let go of it. I don’t know about you, but instead of forgiving, I find myself immediately thinking of very creative ways to retaliate. I don’t usually strike back directly and immediately, say with a few choice words aimed at the trespasser. No, I rarely think that quick on my feet. Instead I take the long patient route of planning for justice by pursuing the “what goes around comes around” approach: planting a few seeds here and there; enticing the right people to have the right opinion. All so the person in question eventually finds himself at the lower end of the food chain, so to speak, thanks to some subtle political navigation on my part.

In the offense in question, I found myself wondering over the next few hours and days… Did I take that too personally? Was it me, or was it him? Maybe he had a point? But after a couple days of ruminating, I concluded it wasn’t me at all. No, this person, this trespasser, intentionally put me down to further his own agenda, almost certainly at my expense.

Upon this realization, the best of my passive-aggressive skills and instincts kicked in. I started planning my campaign for the counter-attack. I geared up for a major corporate political smack-down. I began scheming to spin a tangled web that would catch the trespasser in his own trap.

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Stage one is Selective Amnesia. When the wound is fresh, I am in complete denial that I am even a Christian. Instead, I am on a mission for revenge. “Screw him! Off with his head!” I completely forget about all that stuff in the Lord’s Prayer and pretty much ignore the New Testament teachings in general.

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The next morning, during a brief reading of scripture before work, I was reminded about what Jesus said about forgiveness. But, to be honest, another part of me kind of felt it was my job to correct the situation and prove that I’m more powerful and of course, right where he was wrong. And not just wrong but impulsive and over-emotional and thus his decision-making was impaired making him a lousy executive compared to me, the reasonable, level-headed and much, much more objective company leader.

As you can see it is very difficult for me to even begin to give this person a platform for forgiveness because, well, it’s the best thing for everyone that he gets taken down a notch. Plus, didn’t Jesus really stick it to the Pharisees when they questioned his authority? Yes! Jesus put those Scribes and Pharisees and Lawyers in their place and made them look stupid in front of the crowd of onlookers. Jesus spent three years of his life dishing it back to those arrogant Pharisees. He stumped them and outsmarted them, and basically made them out to look like pompous, shallow boneheads. Now, that’s the Jesus I’m talkin’ about!

But I must admit Jesus was fighting for a greater purpose—that whole God’s love and redemption of humankind business. I’m just fighting for, well, me—my ego, my authority and position, my way. This has nothing to do with God.

Forgiveness is hard work. Mostly because no one really wants to do it. Not at first, anyway. Our feelings of hurt and retaliation run so strong that we instinctively take action to protect ourselves. But Jesus seems to really harp on this subject quite a bit. The gospels are filled with his teaching about turning the other check, and praying for our enemies, and walking the extra mile, and basically sounding like we should all just find joy in being abused and taken advantage of for the rest of our lives. Sometimes I’m downright embarrassed by these “hard sayings” of Jesus in the gospels. They don’t make sense! Plus they are so extremely counter-intuitive to what I would really do in the face of attack and betrayal.

Upon deeper reflection of these difficult commands, I start thinking of Jesus more like an eccentric relative at a family gathering than the Savior of the World. You know, you really love him deep down inside, but you cringe a little when you hear him talking about these things in public. So you feel obligated to intervene and you turn to your friend with a nervous chuckle and say, “Oh, that crazy Jesus! He said what? Oh, my goodness! I’m sorry…He didn’t really mean it that way…He’s always saying things like that!“ But I also know that’s precisely the way Jesus meant it. It’s just hard, and I don’t like it very much.
The fact is, if I really want to follow Jesus, I must get over my shallow-headed spiritual resistance and face the act of forgiving head-on.

But that is not what I did.

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Stage 2 is Procrastination. Here is where I start calming down a bit, and realize that God wants me to forgive this person. Maybe my spouse got on my case, too, or I heard a very convicting sermon. But let’s face it—I still don’t like the idea, so I think about something else for a while, hoping to distract myself, procrastinating on doing God’s business. Aho am I kidding? I still very badly want to see the trespasser get screwed!

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I decided to enlist reinforcements, so I called in a trustworthy business and spiritual mentor, an older and wiser friend named Alan. I was certain he would quickly jump to my aid, being a seasoned business executive and all. Surely he would support my cause for snuffing out the dirty trespasser. Maybe Alan could also suggest some crafty Christian political maneuvers I hadn’t thought of because he is so much more spiritually accomplished than me! Yes, this would be fun. I was so happy to have an advisor to help navigate the tricky currents of organizational life. Isn’t that what a mentor is for? To help me succeed? To get me to the winner’s circle?

Let’s say my trespasser’s name is Bob. After a passionate and compelling presentation of my case to Alan, I wrapped it up by saying, “And now I have a ‘Bob’ problem.” I sat back, rather satisfied, and waited for Alan’s cunning response.

“You don’t have a ‘Bob’ problem,” he replied.

Good! This is going to be bigger and badder than I thought!

Alan continued. “What you have is a forgiveness problem.”

What? A forgiveness problem? Hello, I’m the one who got trespassed against!

“You have to help him.” Alan said, conclusively. “You have to forgive him and try to help him succeed in his job.”

Ouch. Where does he come up with this crap? Is this Opposite Day?

Those bitter thoughts shot through my conniving brain at lightning speed. These are my instincts—my guts—my hard-wired sense of protection and survival. And this, as far as I know, is the same instinct we all have; it’s what every one of us feels when we are attacked. After several hundred milliseconds I slowed down to actually hear and begin processing what Alan was saying. I started thinking much more slowly. Like the way Homer Simpson thinks about donuts. Sometimes that helps me. “Ooooookayyyyyy,” I thought, with a slow-motion voice-over. “Forrrrrgiiiiiiiiive him. That’s right. That’s the riiiiiiiiiiight thing to do.” BUT I DON’T LIKE IT. Those neurons started firing again, and retaliation wanted to kick forgiveness in the ass. I tried to discipline my thoughts.

“Alan, that would be really hard. Are you sure there’s not a better idea?”

“No, you must forgive him. And I want you to call me back in a month and let me know how it went.”

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Stage 3 is Discussion. I begin to talk it over with God in my prayer conversations. “Dear God, you must have seen what an idiot Bob was! You were there, right? Can you believe what he said to me? I mean, is it OK for Bob to build his career by destroying mine? Just wondering…” I admit that I still have bad feelings, but I actually consider the possibility of forgiveness, and believe that God may have some higher purpose. (Ya think?)

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So I swallowed my pride and followed Alan’s advice. I paid a visit to ‘Bob’ and we talked about our little blow-out. I took the high road and told him that, based on his reaction towards me that day, I thought maybe I had offended him at some point, and that I was sorry and didn’t mean to do that. We cleared the air as he explained in more depth why he said what he did, what was going on in his mind, and what was behind it. We actually ended up having a very good discussion about the whole thing. But he never really apologized to me…even though I apologized to him. So, I was kind of still holding on to my negative retaliatory feelings. But the big difference now was that I was going to count on God for the vengeance; passing the revenge baton to the One with the biggest stick I know.

“Vengeance is mine, thus sayeth the Lord!”

Well, that’s how I remembered that saying in my mind from childhood. I looked up the real passsage and it actually says:

”Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” (It’s Romans 12:19, by the way.)

What a great scripture! I didn’t think that passage was actually even in the Bible, assuming it was one of those sayings everyone attributes to the Bible and maybe hopes is in the Bible, but it really isn’t there. Like, “Cleanliness comes before Godliness…” not in the Bible. Or, “God helps those who help themselves.” Also not there. Well this one is, praise God! Probably a good verse for all of us laypeople to take completely out of context, too, especially when we’ve been betrayed. So I will not spend too much time researching the commentaries or digging into the Greek and Hebrew to get the real gist of it. I like it the way I used it just now. I like in this verse the way Paul says, “Do not take revenge, my friends…” I imagine Paul speaking with a gravelly pirate-voice in a Cockney accent, his face all scarred up from shipwrecks and hardships, with his band of believers circled around him, sitting by the campfire late at night. He’s got this glint in his eye and he says, “Arggh! Do not take revenge, my friends…” Then he nudges the guy next to him, with a wink and a nod. “Ye got to leave room for God’s wrath, mates!” Say no more, Paul! Another round! Then they all lift their drinks for a toast and sing a rousing hymn.

Alan had thus assured me that I didn’t have to take matters into my own hands to see justice served. In most cases justice kind of works itself out over time, as long as you’re not working in a complete loony bin. Which I’m not. Most of the other execs at my company, the Chairman, the Board, they are all reasonable and intelligent people who would see right through any negative, destructive and impulsive behavior and make decisions accordingly.

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Stage 4 is Mobilization. This is where I work up enough courage to approach the trespasser in question and try to work it out, even though the oblivious trespasser should have been the one to come to me first. I know that, but I’ll overlook it for now. Hopefully those conversations with the trespasser lead to some healing and recovery and maybe even to a couple of beers later on. Things are looking much better now.

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I took a breath and relaxed a bit more and made another conscious choice of forgiveness (even though I didn’t get the apology…I couldn’t quite let that go yet). Over the next few days, I looked for other opportunities to help this trespasser guy, just as Alan said I must. I dropped by his office a couple of times with some ideas. And you know what? He softened up quite a bit towards me. We even agreed to revisit the dreaded topic that he was so jacked up about that day, the nasty remark that got this whole thing started. Hey, that’s great. As long as we can talk about it together without putting each other down. Over the next few weeks my thoughts of retaliation and vengeance didn’t matter so much any more. I got over it. I forgave him. I really, truly, in my heart, forgave the trespasser.

He still hadn’t apologized yet, but I didn’t care any more.

A few months later, Bob was asked by the Chairman to resign. When I heard the news, I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess it’s all for the best,” I said.

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Stage 5 is Surrender. Maybe it worked out, maybe it didn’t, but in either case I know it’s not good for me or for anyone involved to hold on to all those bitter feelings. I give it to God. I don’t care any more. And when I’m lying in bed late at night trying to be thankful for all the blessings in my life, and those resentful and bitter thoughts start to creep in again, I remember that wonderful verse—not the actual verse itself, but the way I remember it from childhood: “Vengeance is mine, thus sayeth the Lord.” And sleep comes to me like a dream.

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Bradley J. Moore posts regularly on the challenges of business spiritually engaged at shrinkingthecamel.com. Bradley is an executive in a large corporation in the Northeast which shall remain nameless.