EP 56: How to Apologize

My topic this week is something that is very basic but is also extremely important. The sooner you master it, the sooner you’ll start reaping the benefits in each and every relationship you have. It will improve your interactions with your spouse, your children, your parents, your siblings, your coworkers, your neighbors, cashiers, waiters, customer service reps–the list goes on and on.

What is this vital life skill, you may wonder? It is learning how to give a genuine, heartfelt apology. Listen in for the details on things all good apologies have in common.

How to Apologize Properly

Episode 57 Transcript

Hello, friend! Welcome to Episode 56 of Loving Life at Home.

My topic this week is something that is very basic but is also extremely important. The sooner you master it, the sooner you’ll start reaping the benefits in each and every relationship you have. It will improve your interactions with your spouse, your children, your parents, your siblings, your coworkers, your neighbors, cashiers, waiters, customer service reps–the list goes on and on.

What is this vital life skill, you may wonder? It is learning how to give a genuine, heartfelt apology.

Sadly, some folks go their entire lives without ever learning how to do this well.

There’s a famous line from a movie that was very popular back in the 70’s when I was growing up. Maybe you’ve heard it. It claimed that [quote] “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

Well, that is a bunch of baloney. It’s a horrible belief and is patently untrue! What it should’ve said instead is, “Love means never hesitating to say you’re sorry.”

Because, if you love someone, why on earth would you NOT want to apologize and make things right whenever you’ve said or done something that hurt or offended them?

Jesus points us in this same direction in His Sermon on the Mount. He says,

“Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there you remember that your brother [or sister] has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. Come to good terms with your accuser quickly….” (Matthew 5:23-25)

Notice, this is how we should respond, whether the offense was intentional or not.

My kids used to use that excuse when they were little. They’d accidentally knock down the tower their brother was building out of Lincoln Logs or trip their little sister when she was toddling past them in the den, and when I’d tell them to apologize, they’d say,  “but I didn’t do it on PURPOSE.” Or “I didn’t MEAN to do it.” As if the fact the consequences were unintentional somehow absolved them of the need to apologize.

“It doesn’t matter that it was an accident,” I’d tell them. “You can still be sorry – and should say so — for destroying your brother’s hard work or making your little sister fall down.”

So we’ve been practicing the art of making proper and sincere apologies with our kids for years – both by modeling the essential components of a good apology whenever Mom or Dad were the ones needing to ask forgiveness or by walking our kids through the necessary steps when it was their turn.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of folks make it to adulthood without ever learning this important skill. So, in case you want to make sure your kids don’t fall into that category when they grow up, or on the off-chance you’re among those folks yourself, I thought today would be a good time to review the art of apologizing well.

All effective and sincere apologies have certain elements in common.  A good apology actually follows a distinctive pattern, starting with the need to…

1. Humble Yourself before God and man

The Bible makes it clear that pride is an offense and affront to God (and it probably has a similar effect on the person to whom you are apologizing):

• Proverbs 16:18 – “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
• Psalm 101:5 – “Whoever slanders his neighbor in secret, I will put to silence; the one with haughty eyes and a proud heart, I will not endure.”
• Prov 21:4 – “Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, is sin.”

The word translated “lamp” in this verse can also be taken to mean “plow,” so some versions translate this, “Haughty eyes and a proud heart— The fallow [or unplowed] ground of the wicked—are sin.”

Have you ever met folks like that, who don’t ever do any digging in their own heart to uncover the sin that resides there? The fallow, unplowed ground of a hardened heart rarely produces anything good. The weeds of arrogance and pride and conceit are the only things that will grow in such poor, untilled soil.

God wants to uproot all that haughty pride and burrow deep into our hearts, removing the heart of stone and giving us a heart of flesh in its place (as Ezekiel 36:26 tells us) and cultivating there a productive crop of fruit, the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

But that harvest will spring much more quickly from a heart wholly yielded to Him.

• James 4:10 – “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”
• Isaiah 57:15 – “For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”
• Psalm 34:18 – “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit.”

So humility needs to be our continual posture before God, but it should also characterize our interactions with the people around us. In fact, this is something scripture repeatedly implores us to do:

• 1 Peter 5:5 – “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”
• Philippians 2:3-4 – “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”

And looking out for the interests of others includes offering sincere apologies whenever we’ve said or done something – intentionally or not – to offend them. Which brings me to the second essential component to a proper apology, which is…

2. Own up to your what you said or did wrong

You’ve got to take ownership of your offensive behavior without trying to justify or explain away your words or actions or point fingers at anyone else.

I understand that whatever you’re apologizing for didn’t happen in a vacuum. I know it takes two to argue, and there are two sides to every story, and all that jazz.

I get that.

But your apology is not going to sound very sincere if you use the occasion to blame your behavior on somebody else or lecture them on what they did wrong.

Sadly, we live in a culture where blame is the name of the game. Have you noticed that? Modern therapy would have us believe that it doesn’t matter how egregious a person’s behavior is, the fault always lies with somebody else (and nine times out of ten, it can be pinned on their parents). Rather than taking ownership of their own character flaws and sinful behavior, the people who adhere to this philosophy simply shift the blame elsewhere.

This disturbing trend was detailed in a book I read recently called Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier. I’ll link that title in today’s show notes. It is an excellent and eye-opening book that I think every parent on the planet needs to read.

But the point is, YOU aren’t going to engage in the blame game when you’re apologizing. You’re going to ignore for the moment the speck in your brother’s eye as you attempt to remove the log from your own. (just as Luke 6:42 commands us to do)

You’re going to focus on what YOU did wrong and leave it up to God’s Holy Spirit to convict them of any part their own words or behavior might have played in the conflict. And, not surprisingly, one of the means He often uses to prick the consciences of our friends and family members is our accepting the guilt for the wrong that we did without trying to rope them in with us.

Then, the next component all good apologies have:

3. Show sincere remorse

Say, “I am so sorry I said _____ or did _______.” This goes far beyond feeling sorry that you got caught. You should genuinely regret having wronged another person in the first place. This kind of remorse goes hand-in-hand with humility.

So don’t try to minimize or sugar-coat your words or actions. Instead, feel the full force of them and repent accordingly.

But, you may say, “What if I’ve humbled myself before God and thoroughly examined my own heart and motives, and I truly believe I didn’t do or say anything to be sorry for? What if I’m 100% in the right and the person I’m trying to reconcile with is the only one with a problem?”

Well, it is rarely the case that every last bit of the blame lies on only one side of the equation, but it does occasionally happen. It happened with Jesus, for sure. He was 100% innocent and yet all sorts of people took offense at Him.

Yet even Jesus expressed genuine and godly sorrow:

• In Luke 19:41, He weeps over Jerusalem.
• In Luke 13:34, He says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her young under her wings, and you were unwilling!”
• And in Luke 23:34, Christ prayed even as He was being hung on a cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

So, supposing it’s true and the rift in your relationship is completely the fault of the other party: You can still feel sincere sorrow over the situation and express that sorrow to the other person (without agreeing to false accusations or accepting a twisted version of reality). You can say, for instance:

• “I am so sorry there is a rift between us”
• “I am so sorry we can’t come to an agreement”
• “What can I do to mend the breach between us?”
• “Is there anything I can do to help you bury the hatchet and move on?”

You may also want to go back and listen to Episode 11, which I’ll link in the show notes, where we discuss how to fully and freely forgive somebody who has wronged you.

Nevertheless, conflicts are normally not so one-sided. Chances are, you truly did play at least a small PART in the present conflict and can express genuine sorrow for that and use it as a springboard into the fourth component of a proper apology, which is to…

4. Empathize with the person you hurt

Put yourself in their shoes and acknowledge and empathize with the pain your words or actions must have caused. This is part of being compassionate and tender-hearted toward one another, as Ephesians 4:32 tells us to do.

Imagine how it would’ve made you feel for somebody to say or do to you what you said or did to them and express those feelings in words.

Did you, by comment or action, make them feel unappreciated? Disrespected? Used? Unloved? Devalued? Marginalized? Were you looking for laughs at their expense, gossiping behind their back, taking a cheap shot at a known area of insecurity, or being disloyal to them in some other way? Confess it and let them know you understand how hurtful your past conduct must have been to them.

Then the fifth step is to.

5. Accept full responsibility for what you said or did

Admit to the person to whom you are apologizing,  

• “I should never have done that. It was wrong of me.”
• “My comment was completely uncalled for.”
• “There is no excuse for the way I behaved.”
• “I was totally out of line.”
• “There is no justification for my saying such a thing, ever.”

There’s a good chance that the person receiving your apology will be totally taken aback by your frankness long about now. I know that was the case for one of my daughters recently. She has definitely learned how to make a proper apology over the years, and she recently had to put that knowledge to use when apologizing to a co-worker at the hospital where she works as a nurse – which can be a very stressful job, as you might imagine.

After one particularly harrowing shift, my daughter acted uncharacteristically terse while giving report to the nurse who was coming on to relieve her. But the Holy Spirit convicted her while she was trying to finish her charting, and she went back to the other nurse before heading home so that she could apologize for behaving so rudely earlier.

She told the girl she was sorry for having such a bad attitude. She didn’t try to justify her wrong behavior or explain it away or blame it on the difficult patients she’d been caring for all night. Instead, she simply said she’d been wrong to act that way and there was no excuse for that kind of behavior and asked the girl to please forgive her.

The girl smiled really big through the whole spiel, and to this day still smiles anytime she sees my daughter at the hospital. I can almost guarantee you she had never received such an apology from a coworker before.

And my daughter was really embarrassed to have to make such an apology then. In one sense, she didn’t HAVE to apologize. I doubt the coworker expected her to. My daughter’s behavior wasn’t that different from the grumblings and complaints a lot of people indulge in routinely, both in the field of nursing and in just about every other line of work you could name.

But, thankfully, she still has a tender conscience. And she knows when her words and actions grieve the LORD, and is willing to humble herself to make it right when – I started to say “when she slips up” but that’s really a euphemism for what really happened, which is that she willfully sinned. She indulged the flesh by taking her frustration out on a co-worker instead of pouring it out at the foot of the cross like she should’ve done.

Interestingly, though, when you accept full responsibility, like my daughter did in this instance, the other person is far more likely to try and shift part of that responsibility off your shoulders. The nurse my daughter apologized to was so much more understanding and sympathetic than she would’ve been had my daughter tried to justify her actions or blame somebody else for her own poor behavior.

If my husband and I have an argument, and I go to him afterwards and say, “I’m sorry I got so upset. That was wrong. Will you forgive me?” it completely defuses the situation, and he’ll often respond, “Yes, yes, of course. I’m sorry for how I acted, too.

Whereas, if I go in pointing fingers and making accusations and self-righteously saying, “You always” or “I never,” it’s like throwing gasoline on a fire.

So let’s stick with that first tack of accepting full responsibility for our part and then moving on to my next point which is to…

6. Ask for forgiveness

Don’t just stop with, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.” But follow it up with, “Will you please forgive me?”

Colossians 3:12-13 tells us, “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so must you do also.”

Do you remember Simon Peter talking to Jesus about this concept of forgiving offenses? He asked Him, “Lord, how many times shall my brother sin against me and I still forgive him? Up to seven times?” (Matthew 18:21)

And Jesus answered, not just seven times, but seventy-seven times. Some translation render that verse seventy-times-seven – that’s a lot of forgiveness!

In Luke 17:4, Jesus says, “Even if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, you must forgive.”

So take note, because when you’re apologizing, you can make it a lot easier on the person you’ve offended to forgive you by adhering to my next tip, which is to…

7. Commit to change

Don’t just say you’re sorry. Truly repent. Do a complete 180. Let them know, “I won’t do it again.” Then follow through with that commitment.

Romans 6:6 reads, “What shall we say, then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid!”

Just because your brother is obligated by Scripture to forgive you freely as Christ has forgiven him, up to seven times seventy occurrences, don’t persist in wrongdoing but promise to change your ways and mean what you say and commit to doing it.

And in addition to repenting, sometimes it’s necessary to …

8. Make restitution

To the best of your ability, repair whatever damage your words or actions caused.

Remember Zaccheus? “Zaccheus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he! He climbed up in the sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see. And as the Savior passed that way, he looked up in the tree, and he said, ‘Zaccheus, you come down! For I’m going to your house today!’”

The full story can be found in Luke 19:1-10. But what the little Sunday school song didn’t tell us was Zaccheus’s response to Jesus’s declaration. Verse 6 tells us Zaccheus welcomed Him joyfully. And verse 8 tells us he told Jesus, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

He made restitution for the wrong he had done.

And then, the final piece of a good apology is found when you

9. Establish accountability

James 5:16 tells us to “confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.”

If you are serious about repenting of wrong behavior and changing your words and actions going forward, so that seventy-seven apologies a day are no longer necessary, then I would recommend you get a good accountability partner who will be faithful to follow up on the areas you’ve struggled with in the past and make sure you are remaining committed to change.

Be wise in picking such a partner. Choose somebody who is discreet, who will really and truly pray for you, and who won’t be tempted to misuse the information or gossip about whatever struggles you confess.

Ideally, I think a spouse or a parent would be a good choice. If that isn’t possible in your case, look for a wise mentor or a trusted friend you could confide in.

And, of course, root yourself deeply in the Word of God, and keep your own conscience sharp and in good working order by never ignoring the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

So, what makes a good apology?

Humility, admission of guilt, sincere remorse, empathy, taking full responsibility, forgiveness, repentance, restitution, and accountability.

I hope all these tips will help you next time you find it necessary to offer an apology. The more faithfully you are to follow this pattern, the fewer and farther between the occasions that merit such apologies will hopefully become.

The Word of God is full of wisdom for every facet of life, but we’ve found it especially helpful in building a happy, healthy marriage. For a fascinating look at how science has confirmed the superiority of God’s design, check out my book Love Your Husband/Love Yourself.