The powerful first step to offering forgiveness

Ask forgiveness
Sin can happen openly or secretly. But when not confessed, it becomes a growing burden. Our conscience attracts us. Transgression falls on our souls and minds. We can't sleep We find little joy. We can even get sick from the relentless pressure.

The Holocaust survivor and author Simon Wiesenthal in his book, The Sunflower: on the possibilities and limits of forgiveness, tells his story of being in a Nazi concentration camp. At one point, he was removed from the detail of the job and taken to the bedside of a dying SS member.

The officer had committed horrific crimes including the murder of a family with a young child. Now on his deathbed, the Nazi officer was tormented by his crimes and wanted to confess and, if possible, receive forgiveness from a Jew. Wiesenthal left the room in silence. He did not offer forgiveness. Years later, he wondered if he had done the right thing.

We don't need to have committed crimes against humanity to feel the need to confess and be forgiven. Many of us are more like Wiesenthal, wondering if we should have held back forgiveness. We all have something in our life that disturbs our conscience.

The path to offering forgiveness begins with confession: revealing the pain we have clung to and seeking reconciliation. Confession can be an ordeal for many. Even King David, a man from the heart of God, was not exempt from this struggle. But once you are ready to confess, pray and ask for God's forgiveness. Talk to your pastor or priest or a trusted friend, perhaps even to the person you have a grudge for.

Forgiveness does not mean that you must allow people to treat you badly. It simply means releasing bitterness or anger at the injury someone else caused you.

The psalmist wrote: "When I was silent, my bones wasted my moan all day." The agony of unconfused sin consumed his mind, his body and his spirit. Forgiveness was the only thing that could bring healing and restore his joy. Without confession there is no forgiveness.

Why is it so difficult to forgive? Pride often gets in the way. We want to stay in control and not show any signs of vulnerability and weakness.

Saying "sorry" was not always practiced when you were older. Neither of them said "I forgive you." You took your licks and moved on. Even today, expressing our deepest human failures and forgiving the failures of others is not the cultural norm.

But until we confess our failures and open our hearts to forgiveness, we are depriving ourselves of the fullness of God's grace.