I consider myself a forgiving guy. I actually have a difficult time holding grudges against people, and I can only think of one or two people who have caused me to struggle with the practice.

That is, except for when I think of myself. When I consider Roger Overton, I can be the most critical and unforgiving person you might ever meet. The worst of it led me into a very serious depression for about a month, and that continued as a less serious depression for another eleven months (this was several years ago).

How is it that I can forgive others so easily but I run myself into the ground even for lesser offenses? It’s because I hold myself to a higher standard than anyone else. In my mind, it’s okay for those around me to slip occasionally, but I ought to be better than that. It’s not so much that I think that I should be better than other people, but I hold myself to a high standard regardless of what standards those around me live up to.

I know other people have struggled with this problem as well, so I’d like to share how I’ve been dealing with it in hopes that it might help you. At some point it occurred to me that my inability to forgive myself is actually a pride issue and a source of further sin.

While my personal standards are rather high, God’s standard is much higher: perfection. In reality, I fail to meet His standards far more often than I fail my own. Yet, if Christ has died for my sins (and I believe He has), then God is no longer holding my sins against me (Isaiah 43:25, 1 John 1:9). What does it mean if God can forgive me for not living up to His perfect standard but I can’t forgive myself for failing at a lesser standard? It means that I think my standards are higher than God’s, and that is a rather prideful sin. It also involves disobedience since we are repeatedly commanded to forgive (Matthew 6:14-15, Ephesians 4:32). Certainly those commandments include us under the umbrella of our grace toward others.

Indeed, we are called to forget our past. Philippians 3:13-14 “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” We cannot “strain forward to what lies ahead” if we are stuck in our past sins. We cannot press on toward the goal if we are looking backward.

The way forward is marked with repentance; not self-condemnation. I’ve found that the best I can do to practice God’s grace in my life is to avoid wallowing in my guilt and direct my frustrations toward doing better in the future by the power of His Holy Spirit. Withholding forgiveness from ourselves is at best unproductive and at worse sinful. If we truly want to practice God’s grace in our lives, we must forgive ourselves out of humility and submission to God’s amazing grace, and repent toward a life that brings glory to God and enjoys Him forever.

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.” -1 Peter 3:18