Forgiving the Unforgivable: Navigating Betrayal and Redemption in Business

Have you ever felt the sting of betrayal so deep that forgiveness seemed impossible? On this episode of the Certain Success Podcast, we share gripping personal stories of betrayal that tested our faith and resilience. We tackle the complexities of forgiveness in the business world, drawing from profound biblical teachings to highlight the importance of resolving conflicts before seeking spiritual peace. By sharing our experiences of surviving and forgiving acts of deceit, we emphasize the transformative power of letting go and the distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation. 

Holding onto grudges harms no one more than ourselves. Through poignant anecdotes—like the heartbreaking story of a family member who passed away without reconciling and the life-changing advice from a friend on releasing anger—we illustrate the immense personal and spiritual growth that comes with forgiveness. Transitioning to the professional realm, we recount tales of betrayal, such as a significant embezzlement, and stress the necessity of self-reflection and forgiveness in business. Finally, we acknowledge our imperfections and encourage embracing them through faith in Christ, transforming our brokenness into a beautiful journey of redemption and growth.

During this episode, we mentioned a great little book on forgiveness.
The author is Rodney Hogue. Here is a link to that book
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003UBEWW8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Chapters

• 0:02 Forgiving the Unforgivable in Business
• 7:53 Forgiveness and Redemption in Business
• 24:55 Embracing Imperfection and Growth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hey guys, welcome back to the Certain Success Podcast, Matt and Joe. Here and today we are going to talk about forgiveness, and specifically forgiveness in the context of business relationships. And if you live long enough in this world, and in the business world too uh, people are going to let you down, and some of those people are going to let you down in ways that are pretty devastating. Um, we were talking about calling this forgiving the unforgivable. And what'd you say, joe? When, when, when trust fails and it's a really important subject because, you know, forgiveness is most important when forgiveness is hard. And we, joe and I, were talking about instances where our lives were thrown into chaos. And you know, when somebody does something devastating in the business space, it can also be, you know, financially devastating. It can be.

Speaker 1: 1:26

From my past, it actually sort of confused me to a point where I lost my grip on what I thought was true, right, because here's a person that I trusted intimately, that I thought I knew, and you wake up one day and find out you didn't know that person at all, and that's bad. But what's really bad about it is you start to doubt yourself. You're like, wait a minute. I thought this was my understanding of the world as I thought I knew it, and that isn't true. So what else isn't?

Speaker 2: 2:05

true, pretty deep.

Speaker 1: 2:14

So what are your thoughts on this, Joe?

Speaker 2: 2:16

I think everyone is probably resonating with the fact that if you've lived long enough, someone has hurt you Heck, not just in business, but our family can do the same thing. You just have a level of trust and you don't doubt that trust and then when it happens, it just smacks you down, it hurts and it goes deep. And I think that's the moments in our lives when we go to God and we're like you know now what? What am I supposed to do? And the cool thing about the Bible is there's a lot of scripture about forgiveness, and really there's.

Speaker 2: 2:54

You know, I'm not picking out one particular scripture, but it speaks of before you can come to the altar, before you can come to the Father, if you have an individual that you need to forgive, don't give your offering until you go and forgive them. You know, take care of it. And the thing is is it's only eating us up. It. You know most, most the time, the other person doesn't realize the kind of pain you're in. It's us and we're beating ourselves up through that process of healing. And forgiveness doesn't mean you forget, I mean we're human, but it does mean that you've moved on.

Speaker 1: 3:40

Yeah, I read a great little book on forgiveness in a coaching program that I was in a while back, and tiny little book like 50 pages. We'll we'll link to that book because I can't remember the author's name, but we'll link to that book in the show notes, and it did a really good job, though, of explaining what you just talked about about. Good job, though, of explaining what you just talked about about, I think.

Speaker 1: 4:08

I think we all struggle with the line between forgiveness and forgetting then, and and the line between we think that forgiveness means I have to let that person back in my life right and those are not the same thing, and I always really struggled with that um, and anyway, that little book really helped me understand how to make sense of that and to have gave me confidence in knowing that I can completely forgive and not let that person back into my life necessarily.

Speaker 1: 4:47

And another really interesting thing that I learned from that experience was levels of forgiveness. So if you have a devastating pain, a hurt that's that deep, um, I think we also all have this sense that I can, I can pray that away and just like snap my fingers and it's going to be gone. And if that doesn't happen, then like I'm a bad person because I can't get this forgiveness to happen, right, and so we're just talking about sort of this layers of like. Maybe you know it might take years, but hopefully not, but you know the effort toward forgiveness, the effort towards offering it up and asking the Lord to take it, and you know, and then we take it back and then you feel guilty for that and that's that circle. So just an interesting you know approach to you know understanding more about that.

Speaker 2: 5:47

It's. It's a very special thing to see Like, let's say, you're watching the news and it's a family that's standing in a courthouse looking at the individual, the drunk driver that just killed their son or daughter or spouse, and that family gets a chance to speak to that guilty individual and to hear the mother or father say we forgive you, we miss our daughter so much or we miss our son so much, but we forgive you. That is grace in action. That doesn't mean they're ever going to forget the kind of pain that that individual brought to their family, but that is what Christ asks of us. In fact, it's Matthew 18, 21 through 22. It says Peter came to him and said to him Lord, how often will my brother sin against me? And I forgive him? As many as seven times. Jesus said to him I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times 70 times seven.

Speaker 1: 6:55

Yeah, and I you know I recently heard a really interesting explanation of that that there's and I'm going to, I'm going to destroy this, so forgive me if you, if you're listening to this and you know the detail, but I'd never heard it described this way. But there's something uh, uh, related in that era to 70 times seven being like what we would consider infinity. Um is the way he was exploring and I thought, man, that that's so interesting to think about it that way, because I'm like why did he pick that multiple? What is that supposed to mean? But apparently in their culture that effectively meant infinity.

Speaker 2: 7:34

Right? Well, it's interesting, you just said that. So the verse I just read to you it says but 77 times. And there's other verses, know. So you, nib, you've got the message, got king james version. They all write that very similar and I agree with you and I've heard other sermons about it. Really isn't about seven times 70 or seven times um 70 or whatever it is it's, it's, it's the it's for always. You're gonna always. It's a lot, it's a lot you should forgive a lot.

Speaker 1: 8:12

Um, well, and I mean, let's go back to where you were a minute ago, the understanding that the lack of forgiveness the only person you're hurting is. You right, it's it's you that it's eating. It's not, it's it's you that it's eating. It's not. It's not the other person that it's eating. Um, you know, if you decide, hey, I need to hold on to this for a while, um, I had another.

Speaker 1: 8:32

I had another good friend it's probably, wow, 10 or 15 years ago explain this idea to me. And he, he was describing when he he was sort of counseling a friend over a hurt like this, and the friend was incredibly upset and, you know, didn't seem like there was going to be any end to them being upset anytime soon. And my friend said to him, he said, he said well, he said, how long? How long do you want to hold on to this? For it was almost like the way he phrased, it was like it was going to be on his schedule. He was like you know, like, do you want? We're talking about a week, or, you know, two weeks, 11 days a month, like a year, like, let me know, I'll come back to the conversation with you whenever that end of that is.

Speaker 1: 9:23

But there was something about the way he framed that that makes you go oh wait, what? Like? Okay, that changes my perspective on this whole thing. Like it is a decision that you're making. Like how long are you going to hold on to this, or would you rather just let this hot potato go?

Speaker 2: 9:48

hold on to this, or would you rather just let this hot potato go? And it's what's sad, matt, and it it probably happens more frequently than most people realize, but I have a family member, uh, that went to their deathbed and drew a line in the sand, 35, 40 years before they died, with an individual they wouldn't forgive and it was their sibling and never spoke to them again. Now when my mom died uh, it was, it was her sister, who she didn't speak to, and her sister called me and she's crying, saying we should have, we should have made things work, we should have made it better. It's my fault. It's like why did any of that happen 40 years ago? And it really comes down to one word Pride.

Speaker 1: 10:39

Yeah, and stubbornness. And you know I have some difficult ones in my world where I think, lord, help me. I think that I've completely forgiven these people, but not let them back into my life. And, like I said, I think that's like an ongoing struggle and conversation with the Lord that you have to have to go like, wait, okay, did I you know? Is it really? Am I really doing this right? Did I really forgive him completely, even though I know that I'm not comfortable with that person in my life? What does that look like? And even leaving the door open to go, well, I would love for that person to be back in my life. But then it's like, well, what are the parameters of that? What does that even look like?

Speaker 1: 11:34

And is the pain, the sort of layers of scarring over that pain, so fragile that you're afraid of that? That's the word, right, the fear. That fear is always the word. But, um, like, you're afraid to let that person back in. And you know my uh. I have someone close to me who had a big break with their sister and they have completely uh, not maybe not completely, but they've reunited and they're in a relationship and they're spending lots of time together. It's so impressive to watch what's kind of like you were saying about the, the people who forgave the person that killed their son or daughter or whatever, but like when you witness amazing forgiveness, it's, it's something, it has to be Christ.

Speaker 2: 12:38

Yeah, and our greatest example of forgiveness is is the savior of the world who, after being crushed and put up on a crucifix to die for us, before he said it was finished, he said, father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing, and he still was forgiving those that were, you know, going against him. And and it's it's like I said a second ago, it's it's our pride. A lot of times we want to get back, we want to get even. We want to show them. I'll show you and and it show you, and our faith walk says no, you pray for that person and you pray for healing in yourself and quit pointing your finger. Point at yourself first and say, okay, what do I got to do to change, and whether you're absolutely innocent in something that has truly failed you, a human that has failed you. You got to, you got to look, you got to look to Christ and you got to go deep.

Speaker 1: 14:01

And it's sometimes it's it's the exact opposite of our human desire well, let's turn this conversation to the the business side, because, you know, because we're business guys and this is a business podcast, but you know we were talking about examples in our lives earlier off the mic and you know you always have to be careful to protect those relationships and all that stuff when we're recording. But you know, just as an example, you know, we have a client and this is another story that you might not know, joe but we have a client that had an employee embezzle a lot of money well into the six figures for a business that's not that large. I mean, it was a devastating financial loss and also, again, this relationship loss. We go, man, this is a person that I trusted and I think you and I both have some similarities in our stories there. But, um, but there's, you know, there's a different reality. When I don't know that it hurts any more or less, it's just there's something different when it's when it's a business situation and it could threaten the whole business.

Speaker 2: 15:37

You know, yeah, the specific yeah, I mean, um, six figures is a lot and when someone has done that to your small business, you that's going to be a difficult wall to climb still comes back to taking a step back and and really praying for God's patience through that situation. It happened to my wife and I in our businesses that we've run where someone that was a friend that we brought into the business they needed a job badly. We trained them on the business here, go do this and you'll do well. They did so well. They embezzled us and they eventually on the business. Here Go do this and you'll do well. They did so well, they embezzled us and they eventually took the business. So that's a tough one and to this day, you know, when Stacy and I are making decisions, we think about things like that. You know allowing people to come into that space in our lives that we've already been hurt before and I know you've gone through that as well yeah, yeah, it's.

Speaker 1: 16:52

You know, and I guess this is one of those podcasts that, like, I'm not exactly sure where the end is and where it's going and what we want to deliver. But but you know, if you're listening to this, I guess we just wanted you to know that, if you're dealing with the situation like what we're describing here, that you're not alone, that this happens, unfortunately, maybe not to everybody, but it was in some level. I guess it does happen to everybody. Maybe not to everybody, but it was in some level. I guess it does happen to everybody.

Speaker 1: 17:23

You know, business relationships break and when business relationships break, just like a divorce, you know people do things that they maybe wouldn't have otherwise done, maybe they shouldn't have done, maybe they're going to regret those things, and you know all kinds of bad things happen and you know you're going to get through it. And that thing you hate to hear when things are complete chaos. You hate to hear this. Everything happens for a reason, stuff, but everything happens for a reason. And, joe, when you were talking about you know you're the person that embezzled from you and then kind of took the business away from you, so to speak. Um, you know I was thinking well, that's one way for God to tell you that it's time to move to the next day, to pivot to the next day.

Speaker 2: 18:17

Oh yeah, I mean, you, you're just you're, you're, you're in a cadence, you're running, you think everything's going great. And, um, you know, I, I remember it almost as if it was yesterday and this is 20 years ago, and it was time to start getting gifts for the kids for Christmas. And my wife is like, um, we don't have a lot for the kids this year. I'm like, why not? The business is doing great. And we started looking at the books and we're like, uh-oh, this doesn't one and one is not equaling two. Something's wrong.

Speaker 2: 18:53

And that's when, the realization of uncovering what was going on in our financial life, when you take your eye off the ball and you think everything's working, just what, you know, just fine, um, it's those little shock and awes that happen in our lives that wake us up. And and that that's how, you know, we became a little bit more aware of when we're doing business and who we choose to have in our lives. And and on top of it, and again, like I said a minute ago, we have to point to ourselves too. We all are individuals in this game of life and we could throw all the blame at someone, but we took our eye off the ball. We just didn't realize what was going on. It taught us to be a little bit more diligent in our business.

Speaker 1: 19:51

Yeah, I mean gosh, the examples are all over the place, but I think where it lands is on our witness, our witness. We were talking about the example of the parents that lost a child but forgave the person responsible and how that when you look at that witness, you're just in awe of their faith and their willingness to forgive and you see that and go. That's what I want to be. You see that and go. That's that's what I want to be.

Speaker 1: 20:29

And when you had walked through everything you walked through, joe, I'm sure that you walked through it with a grace that when there are probably people that were affected by the way you handled it, at least I'm sure you hope that that's true. And and you know in, in some of the cases that have happened to me in recent years, um, you know, I, I know that's true, like I, there are lots of people that were involved who probably hate my guts and because of you know, misinformation and all these things. But the people that really involved, who probably hate my guts and because of you know, misinformation and blah, blah, blah, all these things, but the people that really knew what was going on know that I handled it with grace and forgiveness and to me, like that means more than everything else. It's just you know how, how did you handle it? When you're, you know, face to face with the Lord, what's he going to say about how you handled it? Um?

Speaker 2: 21:27

so, yeah, I think one of the biggest responsibilities of being a Christian is is we're always being watched. People are struggling. On the other side there's a lot of people that haven't accepted Christ. They know there's a God. They're not sure about Christ. Maybe they're not even sure there's a God. They struggle, but they know that you're a Christian. They know that through some of your posts and social media, whatever it might be, know that through some of your posts and social media, whatever it might be, they know you're a follower of Christ. And it's in these moments when business crashes, a family member is lost due to someone's negligence, when a marriage is broken, when any trust is broken. I think that that's the times where people really watch us, when we're kicking ass and taking names and life is good. That's not what they're looking for. They want to see how you handle things in the darkest of your days. And there was a song when I was a kid. In fact, it's in the book. It's called they Will Know we Are Christians by Our Love.

Speaker 2: 22:48

I remember that song, sure, and maybe second third grade when I learned that song. And it's crazy, that song plays in my head a lot still, at 60 years of age.

Speaker 2: 23:03

It's like if the world can see me. Obviously God is watching from a much better view. He knows my heart and he wants to see how I react to every single jarring moment of this life, from the good days to the bad days. And that's the difficult part for a lot of people to realize is yesterday we talked about pivot. The day before that we talked about the pause. Today is basically about the middle of the storm, and that storm is when nothing makes sense.

Speaker 2: 23:45

People that we love and care for, people that we've gone to their celebrations of life, birthdays you know they've had a new baby, got married. We were there and then life happened and they let us down and that can be so devastating. And that's what I believe in our business side of what we, what you and I do is help people through that uncertainty and that's what we want, we will always want to be in our lives is how can I be a best example, the best version of myself? And it's not that we want to be fake, it's not like we want to create or fake an emotion. We want to be faithful to Christ. We want to be faithful in our walk and say God, take this over, I can't do it and through that process, if we have someone that says they really are a Christian because I just witnessed their Christianity, that's what God wants. That's what makes God smile.

Speaker 1: 24:55

Yeah, and I think you know you can't, I don't think you can leave all of that without acknowledging, uh, all of the many, many times that I failed at that, and maybe you own that too, and, and you know, it's like you know, if you're listening to this, like we're not saying, like we're perfect by any means, although will say that you know, I feel like with every passing year, uh, you get better at it, right, you get, you get we've had a lot of swings of the bat at this yeah, and so you start to, um, you start to get better at your here's the good news, matt you and I fail at this every day.

Speaker 2: 25:38

This is life. It's we're. We're all're all broken and we come to this cross of Christ broken. What is a? You know, when you look at a beautiful mosaic, you separate all that glass. It just looks like broken glass, but by Christ and his power, when he brings that glass together, it's beautiful, and that's what we all are. You know, we have the ability to turn something that is broken into something special through that relationship with Christ.

Speaker 1: 26:12

And that, my friend, is a good place to end. And so, guys, thanks for being with us on the Certain Success Podcast and we'll see you back here, lickety split. See you, joe, see you.