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Book Review: Learning to forgive ourselves |
Learning to forgive ourselves
When RT Kendall wrote Total Forgiveness, he had no idea that it would lead to him writing a sequel that would have an impact. Yet that’s exactly what happened with Totally Forgiving Ourselves.
Starting from himself, to the initial friends who read the manuscript and the thousands of people who responded to altar calls during his recent speaking tour, many have responded to the call to forgive themselves.
‘Yes, God has blessed them,’ says Dr Kendall. ‘I can’t take any credit for this. It’s not my brilliance, it’s not my education, and it’s not that I’m good writer: I’ve just been a forgiven man and telling about it.’
Guilt from sin is something that many Christians struggle with. The call to write the book came after Dr Kendall received an e-mail from a reader of Total Forgiveness. ‘Would you please, please soon as possible, write a book to tell me how to forgive myself,’ it read. Dr Kendall was shaken by this and spurred into action. But not without first coming to terms with his own need to forgive himself.
Dr Kendall arrived in England from the United States in 1977, to study for a doctorate at Regent’s Park College in Oxford. ‘We wanted to get that doctorate behind us and get back to America. So I reasoned that that once we got back to America, I’d spent time with my kids. So I spent 25 hours a day in the Bodleian Library to get my pieces done,’ he recalls. Yet instead of going straight back to his church in the States, he ended up spending 25 years as pastor of Westminster Chapel, following in the footsteps of Martyn Lloyd-George. ‘My son said, “Daddy, you said we were going home?”. I couldn’t look at him in the eye.’
He felt that he was a failure: ‘I put my church first thinking I was putting God first. I now believe had I put my family first, I would have preached just as well, maybe better. But I can’t get those years back and that has haunted me no end.’
However, he now knows the grace that comes from forgiving yourself. It’s not letting us off the hook, because ‘God has forgiven you that you can forgive yourself – in that order’.
Totally Forgiving Ourselves is, Dr Kendall says, ‘It’s written for people who say, “I know God forgives me, but I can’t forgive myself”.’
Not only that, but, he adds, ‘It dares those who are not Christians: they’re going to get the Gospel in this book. I make it clear you’re not in a position to let yourself off the hook with any consistent success because it will come right back on you. But what will last, what will be permanent, what will preserve is when you know Jesus died for you and his blood did it and you believe that. That’s the way you’re free. And any body that wants true forgiveness that’s where you’ve got to go. There is no other way.’
Totally Forgiving Ourselves
by RT Kendall
is published by Hodder & Stoughton, £9.99. ISBN: 978-0340943649
On Special offer at the Bookshop at £4.99 while stocks last
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