Forgiveness: 3-Day Intensive

Thanks to Ryan L Rana, Ph.D. at John Brown University for the idea behind this exercise. 

This intervention is most helpful when there are issues of unforgiveness, especially regarding family-of-origin relationships and childhood trauma.  Sin that others have committed against a person, if not addressed, become a part of that person’s own being.  The most common way to identify sin is to see its emotional impact: it usually results in a hurt, or a wound.  It can be tremendously helpful even if you have already processed through your past wounds, simply because of the time you allow God to lead you through to recognize and deal with events that you have been a part of or that have happened to you.

Process

1. Choose one person that you will begin with.  It is best to start with the most impactful people in your life, those who had the most impact on your development as a person.  In order of significance, this is usually 1) your father, 2) your mother, 3) your siblings and spouse, 4) your friends, 5) pastors, teachers, and leaders, and 6) others.
2. Find solitude.  Take with you only a journal.  Spend one hour asking God areas where this person has hurt you or sinned against you.  Write those down in a list in your journal.  It is important that you take only an hour.  When the hour is up, stop.
3. The very next day, do the same thing again.  One hour of solitude, asking God again in what areas this person may have hurt you or sinned against you.  (Almost always more will be revealed on this second day.  Add those to your list.)
4. On the third day, do the exact same thing again.  Pray along these lines: “Lord God, is there anything else that I have forgotten or left out?  Search my heart (Psalm 139:23) and know me and reveal any other ways in which this person has sinned against me or caused me pain.”  Add anything that comes up to the list.  Again, take only one hour.  No more, no less.
5. When you have finished, go down the list you have created one item at a time.  Out loud forgive each sin this person has committed against  you.  It is important that this is down out loud. 
6. Have a trusted friend (or director or counselor) look through the list with you.  Have him or her help you find themes in the list.  Usually 2-4 major themes will emerge, areas in which you were harmed repeatedly.  Write them down in the journal.
7. Pray forgiveness each day over the list of themes that you have discovered.  Do this until God tells you it is enough.  When He says it is right, proceed to the next person of significance in your life or history.

Notes

• It is very common in this exercise that you will begin to remember new areas of hurt or sin against you that you have not forgiven, even as you pray through the themes each day.  Take note of those, and repeat the process by which you out loud forgive the person for those actions against you.
• Usually it will take 3-6 months of prayer, depending upon the level of pain and type of sin against you, until the work of forgiveness for one person is completed.  Stay in the process.  Let God direct the length.
• This is also a helpful exercise to help determine the particular strength and glory designed within one’s heart.  The Evil One typically knows far before we do the glory we bear and at least a minimal apprehension of the place we are made to inhabit within the Kingdom.  He will, then, assault us in our glory.  Trace the trail of your wounds closely enough and you will discover the area of your unique strength and calling.  (For example, many of my own wounds are in the area of speaking and writing.  I was often shamed by the Enemy when I attempted to bring truth to a situation.  I have since discovered that my desire to bring truth and life is a similar gift to those of a prophet and teacher, intended to announce the coming King as rolling thunder does a storm.  To keep silent as the assaults would have me would have been to “neglect my calling” (1 Timothy 4:14)). 
• As an extension of this exercise, then, keep a journal record of the themes that appear as a result of praying through each of the wounds you have received.  Then, bring those up into conversation with God.  Ask Him why you were assaulted in these areas.  What do they say about your heart?