How to Apologize
We live in an apology-averse culture. We are allergic to repentance and equally allergic to forgiveness. Think about it. When was the last time someone repented to you? I mean, truly sought forgiveness from you?
The last time a congregant apologized to me, the email began, “I might have been a little harsh in my email . . . I had a very bad week . . .” (I’ve tweaked the email to protect the one who sent it.) In further communication, the individual referenced their apology. Internally I scratched my head. “When did they apologize?” I dug back through the email thread and saw those phrases. That is what they were referencing.
“I might have . . .” followed by an excuse is no apology.
I don’t say this to attack the individual I am referencing. In fact, I completely understand why they would think that they had apologized. Our heart is a massive barrier to apologizing. And so is our culture.
The first challenge in apologizing is humbling ourselves. To confess our wrongdoing to another person can be extremely difficult. It is challenging to not justify ourselves, explain our actions, or contextualize our sin. We can feel misunderstood when we apologize. It can be particularly challenging to apologize to a proud or harsh person. We aren’t promised forgiveness much less grace and mercy. If they also sinned against us, it might be even more difficult to repent because they might not ask for forgiveness. In all of this, apologizing breaks our pride and our control. In doing so, it conforms us to the image of Christ.
Our hearts aren’t the only barrier to apologizing. Our culture provides another obstacle. In America, we learn to apologize with phrases that sound like this, “Sorry.” “I’m sorry if I hurt you.” “I know I shouldn’t have done that, but you shouldn’t have . . .” “I wouldn’t have done that if . . .” “That wasn’t my best . . .” Unfortunately, none of those are true apologies. By not learning how to apologize, we miss out on God’s purposes for our hearts and for the possibility of true reconciliation. We also miss out on an invitation to see our sin for what it is, recognize the cost of that sin, and repent to God and the one we have sinned against.
Apologizing is a matter of aligning ourselves with God’s truth. In 1 John 1:8–10, the apostle tells the church, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” In other words, forgiveness is readily available, but it does require actually asking for forgiveness.
We know this when it comes to others. “Why don’t they just ask for forgiveness?” we think to ourselves. “They’re making it so much worse!” We see the child turn the molehill of a small lie into the Himalayas in their refusal to repent. We see a marriage crumble because of the unwillingness of one spouse to confess their sin. We watch a coworker foolishly shirk responsibility believing he’s pulled the wool over the team’s eyes.
And yet, when it comes to us, Scripture reminds us of what we know in our hearts. In Proverbs 28:13, God says, “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” We will emotionally and spiritually shrivel to the extent that we cover up our sin. We will thrive when we repent. Let’s run to mercy. Let’s run to true repentance.
To do so, we need to scrub our cultural understanding of apologies and understand what a true confession is. In Ken Sande’s excellent book, The Peacemaker, he explains that a true confession includes seven components. He calls them the seven A’s of confession.
Address everyone involved (everyone that your sin impacted)
Avoid if, but, and maybe (don’t minimize or excuse your sin)
Admit specifically (both attitudes and actions)
Acknowledge the hurt (understand the pain you cause and express sorrow for causing it)
Accept the consequences (make restitution for the wrong you caused)
Alter your behavior (change your attitudes and actions)
Ask for forgiveness (state explicitly, “I sinned against you by doing X; I understand that hurt you in this way. Would you please forgive me?”)
My hunch is that many of us might have never experienced a confession that included all seven A’s.
Let’s consider what such a confession looks like. By addressing everyone involved, consider how far the shrapnel of your sin flew. If you gossiped, you need to apologize both to the party you gossiped to and the party you gossiped about. If you and your spouse had a fight and your kids witnessed the fight, you need to apologize not only to your spouse, but also to your kids. Usually, these conversations will need to take place separately. If you get angry at a staff meeting, then it might be appropriate to apologize to the entire staff when you are together again. But if you get angry at your wife in front of your kids, then you ought to go to your wife first, and then to your kids.
Recently, actor Will Smith angrily slapped comedian Chris Rock at the Oscars after Rock made a joke about Smith’s wife. Soon afterward, Smith won an Oscar for Best Actor. In his acceptance speech, he apologized to the crowd and to the academy. A glaring omission in his apology, however, was the man he slapped—Chris Rock. All parties who have been hurt must be included in a true confession.
As you enter into the conversation, prepare yourself to not defend or even explain yourself. We can all smell out the “if, buts, and maybes” of someone else’s confession, but it’s so hard to eliminate them from our own. When we inject an apology with an “if, but, or maybe” and it becomes no confession at all. An apology is not the time to share with the individual you are apologizing to about how they have offended you.
When we confess, our tendency is to speak with broad brush strokes. Instead of generalizing, speak with concrete details about how you sinned in your actions and in your heart. If you gossiped, don’t confess that you “said some things you regret,” rather admit the exact language you said and who you shared it with. This can be terribly painful, but we must bring the ugliness of sin to the light if we are going to experience the fullness of forgiveness. Consider a husband who confesses to his wife that “I looked at porn a few times,” only to have the wife uncover the fact that the husband looked at pornography multiple items a week. The forgiveness offered for looking at porn “a few times,” doesn’t extend to the breadth and depth of the husband’s actual sin against his wife.
Surprisingly, the need to confess the concrete details of our sin is true even if the person witnessed the entirety of the sin. For instance, if an employee calls his boss an “arrogant jerk” to his face, it is best for that individual to ask for forgiveness from the boss by restating those hurtful words “arrogant jerk,” than for “being rude.” The reason for this is that the specific confession pinpoints the actual transgression and acknowledges the pain of our particular sin against another person.
If we’ve gotten to this point, we often want to rush to the finish line. While our hearts want to jump to, “Will you forgive me?”, we need to make a counter-intuitive move. We need to give space for the grieved party to express the way in which our sin has hurt them. Don’t assume you know how much you hurt them. Ask how it hurt them and then listen well. “Would you trust me enough to share with me how it felt when I told you to ‘shut up’?” we might ask. Like pulling a splinter out from under your nail with tweezers, creating space for the aggrieved party to share their pain will hurt more in the short-run, but will bring greater healing in the long-run.
Now here is where you get to proactively build trust. You should ask if there are any consequences that are appropriate. If you are a teenager and you broke your curfew, shock your parents by asking what an appropriate consequence should be. If you confessed to watching pornography, invite measures to protect yourself from looking at porn again.
We know that a repentant heart longs to change and not commit the sin again. True repentance comes with transformed behavior. This of course will only be demonstrated over time, but let the injured party know that you desire never to hurt them in the same way again.
Finally, make sure the grieved party is ready to have you ask for forgiveness. Don’t just rush to this step as I often did when I was younger. My poor sister was often the recipient of my sin (for instance, an angry outburst after I lost a game), and then experienced whiplash when I immediately asked for her to forgive me. Let the one you have sinned against set the pace. Perhaps they need to hear you own how you sinned against them. Perhaps they haven’t fully shared how hurt they were. When they are ready, ask directly for forgiveness. This is a question, not a statement. In other words, it is asking “Will you forgive me?” not stating, “I hope you will forgive me,” or worse, the vague and easy, “I’m sorry.”
You made it! Repentance is freedom! It is not your responsibility to coerce the other individual to forgive you. They may never forgive you. But when you have followed the seven A’s of confession, you have done your part in navigating what true repentance looks like. And in doing so, you have followed the way of God. Better still, your heart has grown in humility, compassion, and honesty. In short, you look more like Jesus.
John Beeson serves as co-lead pastor at New Life Bible Fellowship in Tucson, Arizona. He attended Gordon College and Princeton Theological Seminary and is married with two kids. He blogs at The Bee Hive. He is the coauthor of Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World.