What has been your experience of seeing people forgive because they feel they have to (because of pressure from others or because of religious beliefs) and those who willingly choose to forgive on their own?
The idea of forgiving “because they feel they have to” do this is somewhat complex. For example, there is nothing wrong with others pointing a person in the direction of forgiveness. This can be of great help, especially if the person misunderstands what forgiveness is or has hardly tried it before. On the other hand, hovering over a person and not letting that person see the beauty of forgiving, and choosing it as part of one’s own free will, can be coercion. This is not helpful because the person is not necessarily being drawn to the beauty of forgiveness. So, if we make the distinction between educating a person and assisting the person to deeply understand forgiveness on the one hand and forcing on the other, we can see that the former is good and the latter is not. We need a gentle approach when helping others to think about forgiveness.
