Flatbill Pastor Episode 9: Why Should We Forgive?

Becca Wood: 0:16

Welcome to the Flatbill Pastor podcast.

Clint Nolder: 0:21

Hello.

Becca Wood: 0:21

Hello, I am Becca and this is my friend.

Clint Nolder: 0:25

Clinton.

Becca Wood: 0:26

Hello Clinton.

Clint Nolder: 0:27

Thank you.

Becca Wood: 0:28

How are you?

Clint Nolder: 0:29

I'm Dandy. I am feeling froggy, fresh and today is a good day.

Becca Wood: 0:35

I can feel that energy today. I'm feeling it. What they have not seen behind the scenes is you singing this morning and I'm here for it.

Clint Nolder: 0:42

Well, you know what? You got? An in sync shirt on, and it's inspired me. Bye, bye, bye.

Becca Wood: 0:49

Bye, bye, bye. I'm so glad to inspire you all in sync.

Clint Nolder: 0:53

Yes, are they going to do a tour?

Becca Wood: 0:56

I hope so. I've been on my knees praying. I love me some in sync. Justin, if you are listening, if you are tuning in, I'm manifesting a tour.

Clint Nolder: 1:08

I think Justin Timberlake needs a Flatbill Pastor.

Becca Wood: 1:10

Yeah.

Clint Nolder: 1:11

I think so.

Becca Wood: 1:12

I think so too.

Clint Nolder: 1:14

Yeah, jt, let's just talk. Let's have a conversation, spiritual conversation, I'm up for it.

Becca Wood: 1:19

All right, you hear, justin, we're talking to you, that's right, it's gonna be.

Clint Nolder: 1:23

May I love it. That's my best impression of you. You sound better than that. I sound better than that too, but it's on the film now.

Becca Wood: 1:31

We love it. We love it, so let's just dive right into it. Episode nine what, what, what.

Clint Nolder: 1:39

Oh, nine. Yeah, we're in nine October October which is crazy. It is crazy, october, which you would think October would be episode 10.

Becca Wood: 1:50

You know, you would think, should we? Just you?

Clint Nolder: 1:54

know pretend that.

Becca Wood: 1:56

Let's just like pretend, that didn't happen. We're not a little Okay. I haven't obviously had too much coffee. I was excited on and see that's right. We're fast forwarding.

Clint Nolder: 2:08

We are fast forwarding, not through October, because then we'd be at 11.

Becca Wood: 2:10

No, that's right. Let's yeah, yeah, okay, so what are we talking about, please?

Clint Nolder: 2:17

Not in sync in the tour or not a tour.

Becca Wood: 2:18

Please forgive me on all of these little mess ups.

Clint Nolder: 2:23

You know you're forgiven. This is so easy.

Becca Wood: 2:25

So easy. Speaking of. That is today's topic.

Clint Nolder: 2:30

Yeah.

Becca Wood: 2:30

Forgiveness.

Clint Nolder: 2:32

Yeah, forgiveness, I think it's crazy hard. Crazy hard to talk about and even harder to do, but for sure I think it's something that every single person on the planet thinks about and likely struggles with, so I think it's it's worth putting the time in to discuss that out loud.

Becca Wood: 3:02

For sure. Can we start maybe by defining what forgiveness is, or maybe in like a biblical context, or maybe even a pastoral context? What does that mean?

Clint Nolder: 3:15

Yeah. So this is. This is tough to put some words to it. So if you were to look up the word forgiveness, it's going to say something like the stop having feelings of anger or hostility or resentment towards someone for something that they've done. You know, and I think I think from a biblical standpoint certainly, that that's part of it, like, hey, I'm going to stop having these feelings in this direction towards this person for something that they've done. But I also think it goes a little bit further than just okay, well, I don't feel something towards them.

Clint Nolder: 3:49

I think there's something from a biblical hey, I want to follow Jesus piece where it's not. It's not just something that happens in their direction, there's also something that happens internally with us when we talk about forgiveness, and there's a power that forgiveness has that we really can't experience when we're experiencing unforgiveness. But when we, when we decide to make that trade, the trade our forgiveness for our unforgiveness, that's when we realize just how powerful forgiveness can be. But it's it's hard to put words to, but it is more than just I don't feel resentment or anger towards you anymore. There's something deeper than that and I think that's probably one of the things we will uncover as we continue the discussion.

Becca Wood: 4:40

Yeah, for sure, because I think this is a huge topic for anybody and everybody, because we are human and I feel like this is one of the most human things that we can struggle with is forgiveness.

Clint Nolder: 4:56

Yeah, we're all human, except for whoever the flight attendants or people were on the back of that plane with that lady, whoever she was. You know I'm talking about. They are not real. They weren't, obviously they weren't. But I mean. Everyone else, though, and and whoever was in that box that Mexico unveiled this past week? I'm pretty sure I saw that picture of an alien in a box with a thing on it that I think that was a Mexican government. If I remember reading that correctly, it looked like like ET. Then they said it was a legit alien. I don't know, maybe it was a hoax. I didn't spend much time because you know, space is real and that clearly was something that someone made with some plaster and paper mache. But yeah, we're way off track, sorry.

Becca Wood: 5:41

No, it's fine, I was here for it. Send me the link later for sure. So I guess to me forgiving someone, it just kind of there's a scale to it, I feel like, and you know it's so easy to forgive, you know, maybe so and so in the fast food line for getting our order, maybe it's for some people, it's super easy or not to forgive those people, but then there's also like the people who are more difficult to forgive, maybe someone who's like closer to you.

Becca Wood: 6:17

So I guess it's to like figuring out that like scale to have like forgiveness too. It also depends on like personal experiences and past experiences.

Clint Nolder: 6:29

Yeah, I definitely think that when you say scale, are you saying in terms of like whether it's easy or not, like it's a it's easy to difficult scale, or are you saying there's different types of forgiveness? I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying.

Becca Wood: 6:44

Well, I guess both, but I wasn't thinking like that. I was definitely thinking like it's easier to forgive, you know, like you know, oh, sally the barista who gave you the wrong coffee. Yeah. Like oh, it's fine, it's great. I think that's a great way to get to know your family versus, like some, you know, a family member who continues or you know, hurt you or whatever.

Clint Nolder: 7:08

And that just tends to be a little more difficult to forgive. Yeah, I would agree with that, I think I think when we talk about our feelings, you know, we can certainly make small things into larger things. And someone you know mess up our drink order, whatever, typically, if we blow up on them and are having struggle, struggles with forgiveness, it's really not about them, it's about something else. You know, that's has kind of piled up and become bigger than you know what we anticipated it being and and it's just the overflow that the barista is now catching from us.

Clint Nolder: 7:46

When we talk about really large things, our personal things, for us, that with people that are close to us, a lot of times that deals with not just not just something they did, but oftentimes things that we expected them to do, where we had this expectation and they felt short of it. So it's not just their actions, it's aggravated or anger us. It's the failing to meet the expectations we had internally for them. And so there's really two pieces is they've made mistakes, but also they haven't lived up to what we were hoping. And so when you put those two things together expectations, and then this hope and desire and and the just failure that happened. You know the mistake that was made all of a sudden. That runs a little deeper with us than just well, shoot. I want to decaf and you gave me caffeinated whatever. I don't drink coffee, so I don't know what you call caffeinated coffee.

Becca Wood: 8:46

But yeah for sure, and that's a good point, the expectations that people like fall short and I feel like that is a huge challenge when we are trying to navigate forgiveness. And maybe their intentions as well, because those are my two at least, for like personally, if I think, because I feel like too. Maybe everyone has that one person or they don't I'm just but myself over here but they can think of that person that they are either like trying to forgive or forgiven in the past, and those are big pillars while navigating. Forgiveness is like expectations and like intentions. What would you think about that? Like the intentions behind it as well?

Clint Nolder: 9:35

Yeah, I think, I think we have the ability to self-diagnose someone else's motive, whether we're correct or not, you know, I I think that comes and goes, um, but for sure our mind jumps to. Not only do I understand what you did, I now have jumped to. Why would you do that? And a lot of times we move to the worst case scenario of surely this is the explanation behind their behavior. That I also was unacceptable. So it's, I've got an expectation of you and who you are, and you've missed that mark. You've now done something actually that I can see, um, and I'm disappointed in that action. So now you've failed on the expectation, you failed on the action, and the third piece would be what you're saying is um, I also think that you did it on purpose, right, that your intent wasn't even that you intended to make this mistake. It wasn't like a oh, shoot, sorry, it was like no, you, you purposely did this, um, that you knew my expectation and my hopes for you. You knew this was not something that was okay and you did it on purpose. You put those three things together and it's difficult to move on from, it's difficult to step into a season of forgiveness with them, if all three of those things exist a mistake, um, a failure to meet an expectation, and you believe it was intentionally done, that's uh, those are hard things to overcome and I think everyone can probably think of someone in their life that kind of falls into that category. I know, when I think through that I I remember many, many Fridays where I sat on the front porch of, uh, my house and looked at the street waiting for my mom to come pick me up, and she just never showed and I would just sit there and eventually someone would come outside and say, hey, it's okay, she'll be here next week, and most weeks it was just an empty street or out here at car coming.

Clint Nolder: 11:30

We had these big Magnolia trees that were sat right in the front yard and it was huge, this enormous Magnolia tree, and I couldn't you couldn't see through it and of course I was too young to like run out into the street so I could sit on the porch by myself and it was probably 30 or 40 feet to the street, um, from our house, so I could sit on the front porch but I couldn't see past the Magnolia tree. So I'd hear a car coming and I'd be like listening, like okay, is it slowing down? It's slowing down, slowing down, and it would just drive right by. And those I mean.

Clint Nolder: 11:59

I still remember sitting on our front porch and the anger and the resentment that started to build and form because it was a mistake of not showing up when you're supposed to, it was a failure to meet an expectation that I had for someone that was, you know that, close to me, um, and then I also you put that third piece in there, like I. I think you know good and well what you're doing and you just don't care, and that that is.

Clint Nolder: 12:30

it has taken a long time. You know, we go back to when I was eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 years old, 13. Um, and I mean it's it's something that it may have took decades.

Clint Nolder: 12:48

You know, at least two um for me to get to a place where, you know, I felt like I could do what Jesus asked me to do with that Um and it's, but it's difficult when those three things exist together. It's it's hard to move on, it's hard to sit in a place of peace and forgiveness, um, when those things are so real to you, you know, uh, and I. The other side of it, though, is, I think it's also gorgeous the way that God's made us, that we are so connected to people and that we do have that ability to have expectations for someone who's supposed to care for us, and that so many times, people meet those expectations, right, that God's given us a heart and a desire to love and to care and to be a part of one another's lives, and when those people show up, um, it changes the meaning of life for us. You know, like, all of a sudden, there's this overwhelming sense of this is a good moment, uh, and I wouldn't trade these experiences for anything, because I'm with the people that I care about and that really genuinely care about me, and this is what life is for. You know, when we think about the community aspect of how God has created us. I mean this is good and so there's there's a positive thing with it and, honestly, for us to enjoy those moments where everyone meets those expectations which and I'm not saying that everyone's expectations or everyone, all the expectations I have for people are right.

Clint Nolder: 14:24

But you know, I mean there's general expectations we have with friends or or good friends and families and those kind of things and those, those expectations typically are reasonable. And so when, when people meet those expectations, we have this extreme high. But the reason it's such a great high for us to experience is because we also have it to compare to the worst moments where people didn't meet those expectations, intentionally or unintentionally. We still know what it's like to sit on a front porch and know one show which makes the moments when people show that much sweeter, you know, and so it's. It's, it's a, it's a good and a bad thing, I guess, is what I'm saying. It it we get. We get to experience both as as people.

Becca Wood: 15:07

No, yeah, that's a really good way I mean, I haven't necessarily thought of it that way um, in retrospect, flipping it, um, so that's a good insight, I guess now, though, so you have been hurt why is it so important to forgive, and why does maybe Jesus think we should forgive?

Clint Nolder: 15:29

Yeah, Um, I think, how do we can get there? When we think about forgiveness, there's one moment where you know Jesus is is so radical and radically different in terms of the way we interact with other people relative to what we would naturally do. There's a moment, um in in his own story, where one of his really close friends comes and asks him and they're just kind of walking through some interpersonal expectations that they have with other people, and he's like hey, how many times should I forgive someone? You know seven times, you know. And and Jesus is like no, he gives us just crazy number like 70 times. Seven times, you know, and that's a lot, that's a lot of forgiving. Um, and then the really good friend, like he was thinking like seven times is a pretty stinking also amount of times, like that's a really that's a like. If I'm forgiving you seven times, then I'm doing you a solid. And Jesus is like look, even your extreme hasn't even gotten to the expectation. Let's just this is blow this thing out of the water. Um, you should forgive just a crazy amount of times. So that's Jesus's expectation.

Clint Nolder: 16:46

And so that would then lead us to the question Jesus, why would you ask us to submit ourselves to that many wrongdoings, like why are you okay with that? Why would you even put into our minds that we could have the expectation of ourselves to be involved with other people that would wrong us that many times and then have the expectation that we would continue to forgive them that many times? That's a lot of times for someone to make a mistake in our direction, intentionally or unintentionally still a mistake in our direction. That's a lot of times, jesus, and I think what we wanna get stuck on is golly, that's a lot of abuse that we're submitting ourselves to. But that's not the point Jesus was trying to make.

Clint Nolder: 17:37

And Jesus was trying to show us that, hey, it doesn't matter how many times something happens to you that you don't deserve. What ultimately matters is you don't want what happens to you, however many times it happens, to affect what's next for you, and if you can't forgive, then that's what's happened. So, in other words, what will happen to you in your own unforgiveness is worse than what happened to you that you are struggling to forgive, right, is it? Look, the things that happen internally and externally as a result of you not being able to forgive someone is well worse than whatever they did to you, because it just locks us up and now we can think of things like man. There are some really terrible things people can do to us and I agree there are some awful things people can do to us. But if we think about it proportionally, a lot of times those really awful things that happened to us then cause these after effects that are sometimes reliving it. It feels internally, at least when I think through some of those things that have happened to me. It's like I'm experiencing it all over again, over and over, and over and over again.

Clint Nolder: 18:48

I'm saying man, but forgiveness has this spiritual component to it when we're followers of Jesus. That doesn't make what happened to us okay and it doesn't get rid of it, but it does bring us a peace that doesn't make a lot of sense to anybody else, which is a promise that God gives throughout. The biblical narrative is that I have peace that passes any of your understanding, and so we have things that have happened to us and because we begin to follow the path that Jesus has set for us in the way we handle when wrongs have happened to us, he gifts us this peace that doesn't come from in us. It's not something that we conjure up on our own. It's a result of the spirit of God working in our life. It's a peace that only he can provide, and when we look at our circumstances, it makes no sense that we would be able to move forward peacefully with the trauma we've experienced. I don't understand how it happens.

Clint Nolder: 19:45

The only explanation is God gives it, and so the reason that we ought to forgive is because God's got something more for us that's waiting on us after we've gone through whatever bad or poor or tragic or traumatic experience that someone has put us through. There's more for us. Our life is not finished. God still has more for us to step into, and he knows Jesus knows that if we walk forward or attempt to walk forward into that with unforgiveness inside of us, we are not going to fulfill everything that Jesus wants for us Because we're being weighed down. That's what unforgiveness is, is shackles around our feet which we didn't put there, someone else put there because they did us wrong.

Clint Nolder: 20:28

And so now we've got two issues.

Clint Nolder: 20:30

We've got the issue of the tragedy they caused in our life, or the trauma or the mistake or whatever it is they've caused in our life, but now we've also got the ball and chain that comes with unforgiveness that is dragging us down, so that every time we walk into another situation, this unforgiveness piece is still hanging over our head and we use that as the lens to view the next person in front of us.

Clint Nolder: 20:54

And if we use that lens to view whoever God's gonna put in our path in the future, we might miss out on some of the greatest relationships we could have ever imagined, because we're still looking at them through the lens of someone else's mistake and our inability to let it go. And when I say let it go, I don't mean just to like pretend it never happened, right? Because for sure I mean God's gonna hold every single one of us accountable for the things that we've done, so it's not like, hey, things have never happened. And for sure, if we walk forward, it doesn't mean that they're exempt from consequences. It just means that we are exempting ourselves from giving ourselves more consequences because of their stupid decision or poor decision or reckless decision. You know.

Becca Wood: 21:43

Yeah, for sure, because I feel like a lot of people they don't want to forgive and they don't wanna relinquish control back to that person, or they feel like it's almost like a weakness, but it's actually quite the opposite, and so my question now is so what are boundaries that are maybe healthy that we could set up, because I feel like, okay, let's just forgive and forget, forgive and forget. We're out here like Oprah giving free forgiveness for everybody.

Becca Wood: 22:20

Like what is an ideal I don't know when we forgive to actually move on and have those boundaries in place.

Clint Nolder: 22:31

For sure. There's a difference between forgiveness and trust, and you can offer someone forgiveness and not offer them your trust. And so I don't think there's this idea of forgive and forget, because when we forgive and forget, we forgive and pretend right, we're gonna pretend like that never happened. Well, that's not what forgiveness is. It's just saying, hey, you know what? There's nothing else I can do to hold you accountable. If it's a legal thing, then there's a court system that's gonna take care of you.

Clint Nolder: 23:02

If it's not a legal thing, then I'm gonna trust God that His justice is gonna be fine, but I'm not gonna allow your issues to dictate what I'm gonna be moving forward. And so I'm gonna stop harboring this bitterness and resentment towards you, because I think Jesus gives me this ability, this spiritual ability, to say you know what, I'm gonna let it go. But when you let it go and you begin to move forward and move on, that doesn't mean that you have to trust them the same way, trusting them is not connected to forgiveness, right, it's not a hey, if I'm gonna forgive you now, I'm gonna trust you like I did previously. That's not what the expectation is. And so when we talk about boundaries, boundaries are important, especially if we know like, hey, at the end of the day, just because we forgive someone doesn't mean they wanted to be forgiven. So someone might have an offense towards you. They might think that it wasn't a big deal but it ruined you.

Clint Nolder: 24:18

Right, so you can forgive them and they might not even feel like they need to be forgiven. They might not even feel like they need to be forgiven. So for sure, you're still not going to trust them because they don't realize that they did anything wrong. They still think that there was no issue. So you can move on and say you know, I'm not going to hold this, they're not going to hold this again, like where it's going to make me feel this bitterness and anger towards you. I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to say it is what it is, but I'm I'm starting to trust that. That you're going to do right by me moving forward Like I've now learned something that's going to teach me. Hey, this is, this is probably not what's up, it's just.

Clint Nolder: 24:58

Experiences are still, is still information that helps form our worldview. So let's pretend, for example, I'm trying to think is in the mouth of my head. Let's pretend, for example, let's take an extreme example, right, let's, let's, let's talk about abuse, physical harm, abuse, and let's say. Let's say someone has abused you, right, in a relationship like boyfriend, girlfriend, right, and the boyfriend is abusing, physically, abusing the girlfriend. Like you can separate, move on from that relationship, forgive the person. Maybe there's legal consequences. Hopefully someone has helped you with the courage to say something to someone and there's probably some legal consequences for that guy. But you can. You can still forgive them, even though he's going through those consequences. He can even be sorry, right. Let's just say he's sorry and remorseful. We can still forgive him, right. However, we can still move forward with information we have. We don't have to forget that information to make a better decision. Let's just say he goes on parole Like it's legit, like hey, we can, there's a conviction when maybe even went to prison, whatever, and he gets out and then all of a sudden there's an opportunity to have a relationship moving forward. You still get to make a decision with full forgiveness, to say you know what, this is probably not a relationship I'm going to get into and it's the same as us having an information. Let's just pretend that you're the second girlfriend and or the second potential person and he just got out of prison and you know like, okay, you were in prison for beating the person you were in a relationship previously, so that wasn't even against you. But you can still use that knowledge and say you know what, I don't know if I'm going to move forward in a relationship. So it's when we experience something or we see something else. It's still information we can use to make a better decision.

Clint Nolder: 26:56

To go forward has nothing to do with forgiveness. It's just hey, I'm going to use what I know to set a boundary or to avoid an interaction. Moving forward has nothing to do with the forgiveness side of things, which I think is a realistic way for us to interact with other people. I get it. It's this part of it, even with Jesus.

Clint Nolder: 27:21

You know, jesus looks at us and everybody says, well, God forgives and forgets. No, he doesn't. He didn't forget. No, if he forgot, jesus doesn't die on the cross. Like, god forgives and then remembers. And then Jesus experiences every single punishment and peace and agony that we're supposed to. God doesn't forget and move on. No, god punished Jesus for it and there's no way around it. So God doesn't even do that. I mean we'll read like okay, he puts our sins as far as the East is from the West. Right, that's this really famous song. And we think, okay, well, that's, he separated us. Yeah, that's true, but Jesus still paid for it.

Clint Nolder: 28:10

God didn't just sweep it under the rung, it pretended didn't happen. In fact, god knew that there was going to be offenses made towards him. He created the idea of forgiveness, created the cross, put his son on the cross and then he allowed the whole thing to happen because he knew, hey, I'm not just going to pretend, I'm going to use what I know is going to happen and I'm going to make a path forward and that's what Jesus was ultimately. And we get the benefits of that, where it's almost like, you know, we had never sinned. But it's not quite like we had never sinned, because the reality is Jesus still died for our sins, you know. So God doesn't even work in the reality of. Oh well, we'll just pretend like this never happened before.

Becca Wood: 28:58

Right. So does that mean that you can necessarily? Or forgiveness and reconciliation do they have to go hand in hand? Or do you need one for the other, or is the one prerequisite?

Clint Nolder: 29:13

Yeah, I think it's very. I don't know if you can reconcile without forgiveness. The question is is when you talk about reconciliation, the Bible tells us that we ought to be ministers of reconciliation or people who are serving in reconciliation. Now, when we talk about reconciling, I don't think there's a requirement for things to go back to the way they were, but I think reconciling is tied to forgiveness in that, hey, we can move forward in a way it's. I mean, one of the greatest examples we've got is the shooting that happened in Charleston.

Clint Nolder: 29:50

The church and an incredible picture of grace and reconciliation were the families of those victims that said, hey, we forgive you. On national television. And then the trial and say, hey, we forgive you. Staring at a person that killed their kids or their brother sisters, hey, we forgive you. And wanting to just say, hey, things are okay with us or between us. I just can't imagine how to get there. But again, that's also this thing that Jesus gives us. That makes no sense to us. But somehow we found a way to have peace and to reconcile.

Clint Nolder: 30:23

Now does that mean that relationship is going to be a good relationship?

Clint Nolder: 30:27

Killer and victims, families Like they're reconciled? No, reconciliation is not now we're BFFs, right, but it is saying that whatever it is that Satan could use between you and I, I'm going to squash that so that God's will and plan for me isn't hindered by some ball and chain that exists between you and me. That's what we're going to reconcile is hey, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, I don't understand why you made your decision. It hurts, I'll never. I'll never be able to move on like, forget that moment, whatever.

Clint Nolder: 31:04

But I'm not going to give you power to stop me from whatever God has in front of me and I'm certainly not going to give you space in between my ears when I go to sleep at night, where you're going to dominate my thoughts. I'm going to do that anymore and I'm going to be the person that says hey, my hope for you is you fall in love with Jesus and that at some point, at some point, you decide to give Jesus every piece and part of your life. And I pray that for you and I hope for that, you for you, and I want that for you, wish it for you, if anything. That's what I dream for you and I think that's where reconciliation and forgiveness kind of intermix, intermingle, intertwine.

Becca Wood: 31:52

Yeah, which is so much easier said than done. And, like you said, I mean these are just like crazy stories that you hear, like how, that's just unfathomable, like how can we forgive? I mean, even speaking, you know, as a Christian, like it's just sometimes just like, oh, how do we even get there? And two, like personally, it's the people that maybe, like continue to hurt you. And, like you said, like oh, you should always just keep keep forgiving and keep setting boundaries. But I guess some people still struggle with, like the thought of it's like maybe, like as a family member, you can't like leave your family, you can't get. I mean, maybe you can, maybe you can, but in certain situations it's like the person like this is forever, this is my life and I'm with that person forever. How, how do we even navigate that?

Clint Nolder: 32:47

I think you well. First of all, when it comes to family situations, you've got to have the willingness to have a conversation outside of the family. I would, I would recommend you go and speak with a pastor or, even better, probably a counselor that specializes in interpersonal relationships, in particular, healthy families, and you want to have a conversation about, hey, what does it look like? Because you're right, we're not getting rid of family, but we can create boundaries, right? So let's, let's talk a little bit. Let's give a real, specific example. Let's let's give an example of a parent that has an addiction issue and is wrapped up in addiction and, you know, has made a lot of poor decisions for as long as you can think of, and they continue to live in that world of addiction and the cycle that happens, right? Well, obviously, let's say, if it's a parent like you're stuck with them, like you can't, you don't get new parents, right, they're going to be there until they're not there, and and so what you've got to come to the conclusion of is that you can be a part of their life, but you don't give free reign into your life for just anyone and everyone, even regardless of whether they're blood or you know, long-term connections, and so I would encourage someone who's got a parent as addicted. I would say hey, look, always answer the phone they call, pick it up. If it's inconvenient for you, that's okay. Pick up the phone If they call, be available. But then you can also set boundaries of hey. My answer is always going to be no. When you ask me for money, I will always be here to talk with you, but if you're showing any signs or symptoms of being on something, you're not going to have access to my kids. I'm not going to tell my kids anymore that you said you're going to show up, because I don't want to disappoint them. So whenever you show up from now on, it'll be a surprise for them, which they love surprises. So feel free. Feel free to show up. So, whatever is happening, and if you're sober, it's obvious to me when you're sober, we can't hide it. So you're always welcome to sober. But you can call and tell me you're coming, and I'm still not going to tell them, because I figured out a way to deal with the disappointment, but they're too young to have to figure that out, and so they'll just get surprised by whatever the name is grandmother, granddaddy, whatever it is and I think you've got to set up those boundaries. And again, I think you've got to rely on Jesus to give you the peace for those boundaries.

Clint Nolder: 35:37

And certainly there's other things, right. I mean you might say, hey, look, when it comes to addiction and those poor choices, you might say, well, I want to be involved, I want to help with rehab or whatever. So you can always give options Like hey, I'll always answer the phone the moment you want to get help. I'll be your biggest advocate. I've already done the research. I've got two or three places that you could look into right now. So as soon as you want to do something and move forward, I'll help you. Like, you sit in that position and that posture and ultimately you're still have a life with them.

Clint Nolder: 36:12

But it's up to them whether or not they want to do the right things, to be fully involved in your life or not, and so you have the ability to remove that responsibility from you. That wasn't yours to begin with, but sometimes we feel like it's ours to begin with and I think that that's applicable across all lines. It doesn't matter what the wrong is, it's been done to us. If there's something that's inappropriate that continues to happen, then we just have to figure out hey, how do we communicate that we're not gonna subject ourselves or our families to this behavior anymore? We love you and we care for you. But I'm gonna make a decision unemotionally now, detached from any situation, for it doesn't matter if it's you or anyone else.

Clint Nolder: 36:55

No one else gets to come to my house and do X, y and Z. No one, whether it's you or some random guy off the street or my pastor, my pastor can't come to my house and do this either. No one can. There's no one allowed to come into my life and do these things. So it's not just you, it's everybody. And then you just have to be able to have the conversation and then just hold your ground and recognize that you are available, that you have a plan for them to change and that you are open to them being a part of it. But ultimately they've decided I don't want any of those things. I want everything the way I want, when I want it. And if that's the case, well, what world do you live in when you get everything you want when you want it? That's not reality. Right.

Becca Wood: 37:41

Now I feel like that's a good example, because a lot of people they struggle with like how does forgiveness and maybe tough love and boundaries and how does it all like interact and how do you navigate and figure all of those out? So I feel like what you're saying with the boundaries, that is just like perfect, like practical steps that we all can do if we're ready to put the work in. So maybe what are some other like practical steps that we can take when we're trying to forgive or we're going through that process with somebody?

Clint Nolder: 38:18

I think that forgiveness with other people honestly is a three step process and it's not gonna sound as practical, I think, as people want it to be, but this is as practical as it's gonna get the very first step in forgiveness. 100% of the time there are no exceptions. If you really wanna get the truest form of forgiveness, the very first step has to be that you have to recognize that God has forgiven you first, like you can't start anywhere else If you start with them in mind, or the actions in mind or the motive in mind. If you start anywhere else, the journey to forgiveness is so perilous, it's so difficult, it's so long If there's so many obstacles. You've gotta start with the reality of God has forgiven me, like I've made mistakes in his direction, sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident, but sometimes knowingly. I've completely looked at God and said I don't care, I'm gonna do it my way, I don't care if it hurts you makes a difference to me, I'm gonna do what I wanna do. And that God's response to me is Well, when you want to acknowledge that I forgive you and I've already set the forgiveness, peace and motion with Jesus. So that's step one is that we've got to realize God's forgiveness. Step two in forgiveness is not only do we have to realize that God has forgiven us, we have to forgive ourselves when we have to come to a place that says you know what, if God can move on not that he forgot and just wiped it on the rug, but he dealt with it If God can deal with it and God can say you know what, I still have plans and hopes and desires and dreams for you to fulfill his will and desire and kingdom living, moving forward, like if he's got those things laid out for me and even though he knows all of the internastiness that's happened with me and it's all for me forgiveness, then I probably need to make sure that I've forgiven myself and that I can live with me, because God can live with me. And when we have taken and done the work to say you know what? I know that I'm guilty of this, but every single time I well, let me give you a practical example.

Clint Nolder: 40:46

Let's talk about parents who, in high school, did some questionable things. Maybe they were underage, drinkers or got involved in drugs. And now they're saying well, how can I tell my kid not to do that when I did that? Well, the two things aren't connected, like they're not connected at all. What's best for your kid has nothing to do with whether or not you made that poor decisions before Right. Like the best thing for your.

Clint Nolder: 41:13

Like we can't convince ourselves that because we know we did bad and we haven't moved on from what we've done. That okay. Well, we can't expect them to listen to us Like how dare I talk to them about it? Like that's not the way these things work.

Clint Nolder: 41:26

And so we've got to get to a place where it's we acknowledge that not only has God forgiven us, but I'm not gonna assume the worst out of myself anymore because I believe Jesus can change me and that he can take my mistakes and my poor behavior and allow me to leverage that for good moving forward. And because of that we've got to forgive ourselves and the things that we've done. And if we've allowed God to forgive us and we've forgiven ourselves, then that's the lens we wanna view whatever anybody does to us through. So, if you wrong me, I wanna see it through the lens of how God forgave me and how God's allowed me to forgive myself. And now I've got you to think about.

Clint Nolder: 42:11

Well, I've already got positive momentum, I've already got wins and honestly, on a descending level, the most important person in the universe is God. He's given me permission in terms of forgiveness, and then I moved into the second most important person, which is my responsibility for me. Like I'm me, you know, I mean there's no one I'm more responsible for than myself, right? And so now I've moved and God has given me the ability to move into forgiveness myself. And so the next piece are the people that I have no control over. Right, which is everybody right, even my own kids and my own spouse. Like I don't have control over them, like I can influence, but ultimately they are their own person too.

Clint Nolder: 42:52

Well, now I move into that category through the lens of God forgiving me, me forgiving myself. And now I wanna figure out how to apply the same principles in the first, two and the third situation and that's what ultimately Jesus was telling Peter is. And when we look at how much God has forgiven us for and we look at the peace that God gives us, that rests in us, allows us to forgive ourselves, that's how we need to look at other people. That's why we can say 70 times seven, because God's like, 70 times 70 is even close to how many times I've already forgiven you. Like, just keep counting, it just keeps going up. You know, in fact, there's no limit. Jesus made such an incredibly enormous sacrifice on the cross that you've got billions of wrongs to go and you still won't even reach the tip of the iceberg of the grace that I've got for you, which is covered in forgiveness.

Clint Nolder: 43:49

You know, and that's the way he wants us to view other people. And again, it doesn't mean that it's a you give him a blank check to run you know nuts in your life and continue to destroy you. It just means that, hey, I'm not gonna feel this towards you in a way that drags me down from moving forward. I'm not gonna necessarily trust you because I have new information about how you wanna interact in the world, but I am gonna believe the best for you, I'm gonna hope the best for you, pray the best for you, dream the best for you, and I know the best for you is Jesus because, ultimately, ultimately, if they were to find Jesus, real Jesus, then God's gonna take them through the same thing of, hey, all those things that people are having difficulty forgiving you for, I forgive you. And then he's gonna move into the next step with them and say, hey, even if they won't forgive you, you can forgive yourself. And then he gets to the place of all right.

Clint Nolder: 44:55

Well, how do I handle, how do I handle all these wrongs that I've done with people? Will you handle it the same way God handled you, right, how did you deal with it? Well, you go and you have a conversation and say I don't know what I was thinking. I'm so sorry. Yeah, you can talk about reconciliation. My hope is to Jesus. Followers could get past anything, right.

Becca Wood: 45:19

Even if that other person doesn't necessarily want to reconcile. I feel like it is, forgiveness, is love and a true form of love, because it's constantly being intentional with trying to forgive that person. And, like you said, with those steps and really, however you have to do it, to take that process and that journey, I feel like it's like you're saying it's almost needed to get that, whatever you're harboring and whatever all that resentment, it's so freeing to just kind of let that go and not have that burden on your heart because, like you said, you're carrying that burden on your heart and it could totally mask something that you could have seen earlier that you needed and I feel like Jesus has totally equipped us with those tools.

Becca Wood: 46:19

It's just like having to actually be intentional and open our backpack and get our tools out and kind of like we've talked about in the past. So yeah, and like you said, forgiving yourself I feel like that by itself, too, is a huge, for some people is so difficult to do to forgive yourself. And do you think that forgiveness, like, does it have to be a linear? Do you have to forgive yourself before forgiving others? Like, does it have to be maybe in that order?

Clint Nolder: 46:52

I think it helps. Yeah, I think it helps. The difficult thing is if you're the person who's done the wrong, it's difficult to forgive yourself before the other person forgives you. Right, because you're like, how can I forgive myself if they won't forgive me? But eventually Jesus is gonna convince you that hey, just because they're not doing what I've asked them to do doesn't mean that I haven't done what I know to be right, which means I've forgiven you.

Clint Nolder: 47:19

And so God is ultimately the permission giver when it comes to forgiveness. If God can forgive, we have permission to forgive them. If God can forgive, we have permission to forgive ourselves. If God won't forgive, well then no one has permission to do any of those things. But God, the Bible, shows us and tells us that he is faithful and just to forgive us. Like that's a legitimate thing that he's going to do that, if that's what we seek and desire, the forgiveness is ours. If we want it, he's giving it to us through Jesus. So he's the greatest permission giver. So, however it works, that's just.

Clint Nolder: 47:58

Typically, one of the easiest way to get to forgiveness is when we view the lens of, when we view the other person through the lens that we viewed our own forgiveness with God and we viewed our own forgiveness with ourselves.

Clint Nolder: 48:11

Because a lot of times the truth is is that it's easier to forgive other people than it is to forgive ourselves.

Clint Nolder: 48:19

But when we really have wrapped our minds around the reality of God's, my permission giver if he's forgiven me, I can forgive me that opens up a whole nother level of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Clint Nolder: 48:33

And dreaming for someone else and praying for someone else that probably wasn't there, because suddenly we're looking through the same lens for them, that we pray for ourselves, like we're praying for ourselves that God would use our future, that, regardless of our past, he would have a plan for us. And if that is our prayer, then for them, that, regardless of what they've done to me, let's not ruin, let's not take away everything that you hope and dream for them, god, but let them step into it, let them find you, in a way that it ignites a future that they never hoped or imagined for. And if that's the prayer we pray for them, the only way we can know that prayer is if we've prayed it for ourselves, it's more powerful, it's more real. When we've prayed it for ourselves, because God's been our permission giver, say, hey, this is doable. I've forgiven you, I've forgiven you, you forgive you, and that you put those two things together and all of a sudden, we have the ability to unlock other people's futures through the forgiveness that God initiated.

Becca Wood: 49:37

That's awesome. Yeah, I really appreciate some of your insights because I think that real people out there want to know and have to struggle with this. So, you know, let's keep those practices in mind, keep those boundaries in mind. It's not on a timeline. You're not on a timeline. I think it's just being intentional, being constant with your forgiveness, with those relationships. Yeah, so I really appreciate that and I think that kind of wraps it up for our forgiveness talk. If you guys have any other topics that you want us to uncover, you can text podcast.

Clint Nolder: 50:28

To 678-661-6330.

Becca Wood: 50:33

Yeah, because we would love to get some feedback or get some new content out there.

Clint Nolder: 50:39

Yeah.

Becca Wood: 50:40

So I really appreciate it.

Clint Nolder: 50:41

Cool.

Becca Wood: 50:43

Until next time.

Clint Nolder: 50:45

Yeah, episode 11 next time maybe. Or 10 or 12. Whatever I say, apparently Obviously, I haven't forgiven you, for whatever the number is supposed to be and I'm guessing it's 10 because it's October I actually don't know, so I have no idea.

Becca Wood: 50:59

You know to be determined. I like it. Nevertheless, subscribe to our channel, justin Timberlake, if you're still listening, subscribe.

Clint Nolder: 51:11

That's right.

Becca Wood: 51:12

And yeah, keep listening.

Clint Nolder: 51:14

Baby bye, bye, bye.

Becca Wood: 51:16

And we're out.