Why A Happy Christian Home Requires Lots Of Forgiveness

Christian forgiveness is not easy, but it is the key to a happy Christian home, marriage, and family life.

What Christian forgiveness can look like in your home

Christian forgiveness is a big topic. But today, we’re just zooming in on the Christian family – mom, dad, kids.

Apologies and forgiveness are not easy. But they are a MUST in a happy Christian home!

When your family is trying to show Christian forgiveness to each other, it requires three important pieces:

Apologies
Forgiveness
Moving forward

We all know that people mess up, say the wrong thing, yell when they shouldn’t, and do all sorts of other little and big things that can hurt our family relationships.

Which is why we cannot enjoy our family life or experience a happy Christian home without true, genuine forgiveness. Christian forgiveness, which means we are trying to live out Colossians 3:13 – “Forgive one another as the Lord forgave you.”

Yikes! How can we do it?!

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What is “Christian” forgiveness?

None of us can have true peace, gentleness, kindness, or patience without God’s help. These things are easy on the good days, and impossible on the hard days – without the Holy Spirit leading us.

And with the issue of forgiveness, this is even more true.

In the Bible, we read that Christians are called to radical forgiveness. “Forgive as the Lord forgave you,” is our calling in Colossians 3:13.

How did the Lord forgive you? Let’s look at 3 powerful truths about how God has forgiven you:

Jesus’ death on the cross secured your complete, total, 100% forgiveness. (see Psalm 103:12)
Jesus died for you without you doing anything at all. It was no-strings-attached. (see Ephesians 1:17)
God forgave you because of what Jesus did, not because of anything good you did. (see Romans 5:8)

Christian forgiveness means that the Holy Spirit helps us do these same things with each other.

Our forgiveness is total and complete. It is not reliant on the other person apologizing, changing, or doing anything at all. And it is offered out of love for Christ, not because of the other person.

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Ultimately, Christian forgiveness is about our own obedience to Christ. He calls us to forgive, and He will help us do it.

This is especially meaningful in our homes! Family relationships are happiest and healthiest when there is a lot of quick apologizing, quick forgiving, and consistent work at making things right – and better – all the time.

The link between Christian forgiveness and a happy home life

If you spend a few minutes thinking about what you want your family life to look like, you probably will not put “apologize a lot” or “frequently forgive each other” on the list.

But we all should put that on our list.

It’s not fun and it’s not easy. But when someone is hurt or upset, what are your options?

We could push the awkward problem under the rug. Pretend it never happened. That might feel easier right away, because we don’t have to go through a painful conversation and we can avoid some hard emotions. But we won’t be as closely connected or have as deep of a bond anymore!

Or, if someone is upset, we can get angry about it. We can yell and slam doors. We can go further and name-call, grumble for the next month, and try to hurt the other person back like they hurt us. That can release some big emotions… But we can’t relax together, enjoy each other, and feel safe together in the same way now.

But these options do not create a happy Christian home!

A happy home life is not people walking on eggshells. It isn’t yelling and having arguments.

It’s bonding. Quality time. Having fun. Deep conversations. Inside jokes. Enjoying one another.

The moment of apology and the emotional rollercoaster of forgiveness don’t feel fun and happy. But they restore the bond in the relationship. They strengthen the family. Christian forgiveness creates a home environment that is safe and trusted, vulnerable and intimate, close and connected.

I think we all want that for our Christian homes.

The 3 big pieces of Christian forgiveness in our families

We don’t live in a culture that is great at apologizing or forgiving. After all, these things are awkward! They require humility, wisdom, and communication skills.

Ultimately, they require the Lord’s help. We need his help to calm our big emotions. We need him to give us wisdom in how to approach a hard conversation. And we definitely need his help to humble ourselves, set aside our pride, and offer apologies, forgiveness, and efforts at moving forward together.

An apology is helpful. When someone realizes they’ve hurt someone else, even if it was accidental, an apology is meaningful. This is basically confession, which the Bible says is a central part of a Christian’s happy and healthy relationship with God. It’s important at home too!

Forgiveness is necessary. This is true for forgiving ourselves of sins and mistakes as well as forgiving each other. When we’re struggling to forgive, prayer is so helpful! The Holy Spirit will help us, and it might take time. Hopefully, you can say this out loud to each other and forgiveness can be a bonding experience in your family.

Moving forward is intentional. We can get stuck in our big emotions or in our pride to be “right” or to “win” the argument. But being intentional about moving forward in the relationship after the awkwardness and painful emotions of apologizing and forgiving one another is very meaningful. This doesn’t mean you’ll never think about what happened again! But it means you won’t hold it against the person and you won’t keep focusing on it in your own mind.

Here are a few ideas that I’ve seen as a family counselor, that can help people move forward after a painful experience in the relationship:

Change the topic of conversation
Go do something fun together
Plan something together, an event or vacation, to put that focus on a new event
Give a hug or positive physical contact
Share something with each other that you are thankful for in your relationship
Do something together that makes you laugh
Try out a service project or missions project together to help others

What to do when Christian forgiveness doesn’t seem to be working

Just because your family loves Jesus does not mean that forgiveness is magically easy. After all, do you remember what we saw about how Jesus forgives us? We aren’t God! We can’t apologize or forgive in such complete, holy, perfect, beautiful ways.

But when we’re genuinely trying and it doesn’t seem to be working, that is a flag to us that more help is probably needed.

An important step that we can skim over is the importance of prayer. When you need to apologize or when you need to forgive someone, prayer will help you! When the thoughts of what happened pop back up, prayer will help you.

In addition to prayer, it is important to avoid talking to too many people about your struggles… this can too quickly lead to gossip, slander, or just sharing too many private details with outside people. Instead, talk to a pastor or counselor who is trained and ready to listen well, keep things confidential, understand both perspectives, and bring about unity in communication and in relationship.

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