Forgiveness

Forgiveness to most people means excusing the offense done against them and attempting to stuff or deny the internal pain they suffer. Inherently they realize there is something wrong with this but they sometimes try to force themselves to stuff the pain and push the memory out of their mind and pretend outwardly that everything must be OK because it is a religious duty to do so. This kind of forgiveness is driven by fear – fear of God not forgiving us if we don't forgive, fear of not looking religious to those around us, fear of condemnation even from our own conscience. But running away, hiding, pretending and fear do not heal. It only masks the deep reservoir of pain, bitterness and desire for revenge seething at our deepest level. But even that has to be hidden and denied for fear of condemnation.

What we really desire is for the offender to suffer at least the same pain we have suffered, but preferably much more. We want sweet revenge. We want to even the score and then some. And we think the only way to assuage our pain is to somehow inflict the pain back onto the offender, or at the least hope to see them suffer deeply from some other source while we gloat over their pain. This emotional belief has driven our belief about the nature of hell and our desire to view God sharing our emotions. We want God to feel hatred and vengeful like we do so we can be justified in our anger. If it's OK for God to punish in anger then we feel it's OK for us to indulge in it since we are in His image. But in fact – we are only creating Him in our image – and the image of Satan.

True forgiveness means acknowledging our pain, embracing it, exploring it, not hiding from it, not stuffing it. It means recognizing the source of the pain and who offended us and how much, but then choosing to take ownership of it instead of blaming. Blame assigns ownership of our pain to the offender and leaves the key for our freedom in their hand. But even if they try, they can't use the key to set us free. Only we can use the key to walk out of our prison. Facing and owning the pain and rejecting the false hope through blame and revenge releases the other person in our mind and allows God to heal the pain and truly set us free.

WYSIWYG

I believe that the WYSIWYG principle is exactly what is demonstrated in the events and lives at the time of Hell. What You See Is What You Get. What is very interesting is that this principle has been working itself out since the beginning of sin. As Lucifer began seeing an arbitrary God Who would refuse to forgive if anyone disobeyed Him, Lucifer himself refused to turn back while there was still possibility of his own forgiveness. “Memory recalls the home of his innocence and purity, the peace and content that were his until he indulged in murmuring against God, and envy of Christ. His accusations, his rebellion, his deceptions to gain the sympathy and support of the angels, his stubborn persistence in making no effort for self-recovery when God would have granted him forgiveness --all come vividly before him.” GC 669 What he insisted on seeing was an unforgiving God and his belief became his reality in fact – he placed himself in a permanent position of unforgiveness.

Then he applied the same principle to the angels he was deceiving and caused the same results in them giving the appearance that his views of God were in fact correct. What was actually correct was that he was creating his own god and then becoming a victim of it.

Witnesses

God has never instructed us to argue for Him. That is what attorneys do. We are not suited to argue for God because we have not the capacity to know everything about Him for one thing, and more importantly we misrepresent His attitude when we argue, for we adopt the techniques of His enemy, the spirit of Satan, when we indulge in argument and debate.

We are called to testify as witnesses. Witnesses do not know all the facts or have the complete picture. That is why God insisted there always be more than one witness. A witness has only a small bit of the giant puzzle to contribute. But every piece brought to the table and humbly surrendered to be interlocked in unity with all the other witnesses create a compelling and more accurate portrait of God to a skeptical world.

A witness testifies to his own experience and perspective. It is unique and different from anyone else but not antagonistic if it is truthful. If instead of exercising ourselves trying to force our perspective and understanding on everyone else, we simply presented what God has been, and is now to us, we would see God's power and beauty emerge in a glorious way.