A 30 Year Healing | Lifesigns Magazine

Scott just stood there frozen in time, staring into nothingness. However, the images in his mind of the last thirty years of hurt and pain had come to a point of eruption. The phone call that caused it was from his mom.

“Scott, I’m so sorry. I never thought… I’m sorry.” Click.

The phone called ended as abruptly as his dad and mom’s marriage ended when he was just 8 years old.

Thirty years ago, his dad just walked out the door and never looked back. He did not consider what it would do to his 8-year-old son. He was never known for his concern of other people’s feelings or emotions. All he thought about was himself. He said what he needed to say no matter what it cost him or other people. But now, that cost had finally caught up with his dad, and Scott couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry for him.

Back then, Scott cried through his tears, “Dad, please don’t leave. Don’t go. I’ll be a good son. I won’t do anything bad anymore. I promise. Please, don’t leave.”

It did not matter how much he pleaded; Thomas Johnson wasn’t listening. He was tired of the family life. His life of adventure lay before him and nobody, not even a crying little boy, was going to stop him.

That was the day Scott Johnson swore he would never let anybody hurt him again.

Jesus Christ was a man of many sorrows, the scriptures say. He was offended, and He offended people, often. The religious people of Jesus day were called Pharisees and Sadducees, and they did not like Jesus or what He was teaching. Jesus’ teaching offended them almost every time He’d speak. At first, they set out to shut Him down, discredit Him, and ruin His reputation. Once they realized that Jesus wasn’t going to fall prey to the offenses they would cause, they laid out another plan: find the holes in His teaching and get the people to rise up against Jesus. The problem? They could not find any holes. Every time they thought they had Him in a theological corner, He would slip right past their prideful teachings and embarrass them, seen and heard by everyone in the crowd. Their embarrassment was not His intention, just the result of their trying to trap Jesus. This angered them to the point that their last resort was to kill him.

How could people be so angry that they’d plot to kill someone? Offense? That’s right. Offense. They took offense to Jesus’ teaching because it threatened their control over the people. The more they thought about it, the angrier they became, the more they wanted to get rid of Him.

Scott stood on the sidewalk, motionless, as people walked by him. Some would turn around and look at him wondering to themselves, “Why is that man just standing there?” Stunned by the news that his mom brought, he was paralyzed with confusion, indecision, and shock.

Mary Ann, Scott’s mom, said in a matter-of-fact manner on the phone earlier, “Scott, I’m calling you to let you know your Dad is in the hospital, and they only give him a week or so to live. It’s brain cancer. I wanted you to hear it from me first. Molly will probably call you later. Scott, I’m so sorry. I never thought… I’m sorry.”

Jarred back to the here and now by someone bumping into him, Scott shook his head and started moving again with the flow of sidewalkers on their way to wherever they thought was important.

Thirty years without one phone call. Without one letter. Without one text or email. Nothing. What kind of man doesn’t call to talk to his grandchildren or even find out if he has grandchildren? What kind of man doesn’t care about his son? What kind of man just walks away from his family? Who does that?

What kind of man doesn’t attend his son’s wedding? Not that the wedding mattered. Scott and Kiley divorced years ago. His fear of being hurt kept him from being open and honest about his pain and hurt, which eventually drove them apart and ultimately to divorce. Not that that was an excuse. It was just the way it was.

In all the mental calisthenics Scott was doing, he suddenly remembered the story the pastor told Sunday about an ungrateful servant.

Jesus tells a parable about a servant that owed his master 10,000 talents. In American dollars, it would be a very large sum of money—some theologians say into the millions of dollars. Either way, it was a lot of money, almost to the point that the servant would be unable to pay it back. The master called this servant to give an account for the talents. He could not. The master then ordered that he be sold, along with his wife and children and all he owned, to pay back the debt. The servant fell on his face before the master and begged him to please have patience with him and he would repay him. Then the master was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.

The master did not just rescind the order to have them sold into slavery to repay the debt. He FORGAVE him the entire debt. The servant now owed no man anything.

But the ungrateful servant went out and found a fellow servant that owed him money, a minuscule amount compared to his debt. He demanded it be paid back immediately, and when he could not, the ungrateful servant had him and his family thrown into prison, even though the fellow servant fell at his feet and begged, “Have patience with me, and I’ll pay it back.”

When the master of both servants found out about what the ungrateful servant had done, he called him and said, ‘Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. (Matthew 18:33-34)

Jesus then takes it up a notch and told the disciples and people listening to him, “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

Scott, continued to walk without a destination in mind. He just walked. The story was on his mind as he was thinking, wondering, crying, hurting, and praying.

About five years prior—after the divorce—Scott decided to go to church. One of his co-workers had suggested he go. He went for a few weeks, but it never resulted in any real change.

Recently, Scott was becoming harder to get along with. He was snapping at colleagues at the smallest thing. He would keep his office door shut and, if anybody did come to see him, he viewed them more of an annoyance than a co-worker. Scott knew he was this way but had no answers as how to fix it. So, at the suggestion of another co-worker, he went to church that Sunday, not knowing he would later receive the phone call from his mom.

The service was exciting and heartfelt. At least it seemed that way to him. The songs they sang seemed to be… personal… as if God was really talking to them, and they were connecting to God. The pastor referred to God as ‘Father’, which Scott thought was weird. Everyone knows that fathers are nothing more than selfish, pieces of crap. Who would refer to God like that?

The words of the pastor kept hitting his heart hard and harder, almost like they were going to pierce his heart and break it. Eventually, they did. When the pastor told the story of the ungrateful servant, Scott lost it and began to weep uncontrollably. Three decades of anger, bitterness, resentment, hatred, and offense poured out of him like a raging river overflowing its banks. The harder he cried, the more his heart broke. It was breaking and falling apart. With every piece that broke loose came a release of years of pent-up offenses. With every tear that dropped to the ground, the weight he carried for so long began to lift.

Scott was confused and bewildered as to what was happening. Was God doing something in him? If He was, what was it? He asked himself, “Does God want me to forgive my Dad?”

2000 years ago, Jesus was adamant about forgiveness, and He still is. It was one of the few things He told us we had to do. If we don’t forgive, we will not be forgiven. Ouch, that hurts our pride. No one of us likes to forgive when we’ve been wronged, or when we’ve been offended. Taking offense often is a sure sign of self-centeredness. Most people do not offend on purpose. It is usually unintended. But even if it was on purpose and with ill intent, Jesus tells us to forgive.

“You don’t know what those people did or what they said to me,” you might say angrily.

I don’t have to know. Jesus does, and He will give you the strength to forgive if you ask Him to.

“Sure, that’s easy for you to say because it wasn’t done to you,” you may reply.

You’re right. Those people did not say or do to me what they said or did to you. But haven’t we all been hurt, offended, or wronged by someone else at some point in our life?

The story Jesus told about the ungrateful servant is a difficult story to wrap your mind around. The ungrateful servant was turned over to the torturers until the debt was paid back. Wow, what a horrible result of an unforgiving heart. The outcome of an unforgiving heart is always detrimental—not only to you, but also those around you: your spouse, your children, work colleagues, friends, etc. It usually takes its toll on the ones closest to you. You lash out with bitter, angry words when you have been offended. Deserving or undeserving, those words are like a bullet shot out of a gun. Once the trigger is pulled, there is no way you can get those ‘word bullets’ back. The damage to the relationship will be done.

What was Jesus trying to tell us about offense? In another talk, Jesus said that offenses will come. Life is full of opportunities to be offended and to offend. It is what you do next after an offense that will set the trajectory of your life. Jesus told us to forgive seventy times seven, per day. If someone is offending you 490 times a day, or you are offending someone that much, you need to either find a new friend or get your heart right with God.

Scott’s crying began to soften up as his heart was healing. He knew God was doing something; he just wasn’t certain as to what it was. The Pastor kept talking, and Scott soaked it all in. He knew the past years of his life had been miserable and he tried everything he could to ease the pain of a dad who abandoned him. He looked for the right circumstances, the right relationship, the right job, the right [fill in the blank]. He tried it all and (to no avail) the hurt, the pain, the sorrow, the anger, the bitterness just would not leave. Until today.

What Scott did next surprised him. He heard the Pastor calling for anyone who wanted—no, anyone who needed God to change them—to come forward and accept Jesus as the Lord of their life. He knew he needed something or someone else to take control. He was not doing such a great job. But, there was something different about this decision. It seemed deeper, real, sincere, and intimate unlike the other decisions in his life. In a split second, he stood up and walked to the front of the church where other people were already standing.

When he made it to the front, he knelt. Not knowing what to say, he just started talking to God under his breath. He asked God to forgive him for his anger, resentment, and hatred toward his dad. He cried, “God, please change me. Make me the son I need to be. I give my whole life to You. With Your help, I’ll follow You for the rest of my life.” That was it. Something had shifted in him. He couldn’t explain it nor understand it. Something happened, and since then he has not been the same.

When Scott finally looked up from the sidewalk’s dirty concrete, he had walked about four miles away from where he started. His heart ached for his dad, for his sister, Molly, and for his mom. He knew what he had to do.

He grabbed his phone and punched in the phone number. It rang once, twice, five times. He was about to hang up, but suddenly a voice he had not heard in thirty years said, “Hello.”

With a quiver in his voice, Scott dribbled out, “Dad, it’s me, Scott!”