Forgiveness

Since the beginning of time, bad things have happened. At the very moment that Adam and Eve gave into temptation in the Garden, and went directly against what God had commanded, we were all sentenced to live in a fallen world. Sin is everywhere and we are all guilty. The good news for Christians is that Christ paid the ultimate price for our sin, and endured God’s wrath to its fullest extent so we wouldn’t have to. Jesus died for us, and because of His sacrifice we have the forgiveness, mercy and grace of our Father. Praise God!

In spite of our personal gift of unmerited favor, our society teaches, “An eye for an eye.” Even though forgiveness and mercy are given to us so freely, we tend to focus on revenge, anger and even hate. Why? I’ll admit that it is much easier to be angry than it is to find forgiveness within our selves. After all, someone has hurt me; I have a right to hold a grudge. Is that the attitude that we want others to have toward us when we sin against them? Is that the attitude that we want God to have when we sin against Him? We must learn to forgive because it is what God expects of us, and because it is what is best for us personally.

When we refuse to forgive someone, we choose to harbor anger and hate in our hearts. There is no way that this can be good for us. When we reject the idea of forgiving someone (even if they haven’t sought our forgiveness), we are causing ourselves harm. We never learn to let go of the incident that requires forgiveness, and it starts assimilating itself into our daily lives and other relationships. Before we realize it, the old incident rears it’s ugly head, and we start focusing on what happened long ago, instead of what is happening now. It becomes a cancer that starts to eat away at us. If we know that making the choice not to forgive will hurt us, why would we choose that path? Are we not making the choice to re-injure our selves by allowing a past event to have control over us now?

Forgiveness is powerful, and it is very hard to do because it seems to go against our human nature. It is frightening because it opens the door to disturbing feelings that require agonizing soul-searching. Forgiveness is a choice that cannot be forced. But by clinging to the past, we scarcely exist in the present.

I am not saying that we should relinquish our desire for justice; justice will ultimately be served. I am saying that we need to consciously decide in our hearts to release ourselves from our disturbing emotional attachments that we have with those who have caused us harm. If we choose not to do that, we choose to continue to inflict upon ourselves (and upon others) the pain that we experienced in the first place.

When we learn to forgive for ourselves, we unleash the power of forgiveness, which frees us from the venomous influence of anger and hatred, and that, in turn, increases our capacity to love others. It takes no extra strength to forgive, only courage. The energy that we use to hold onto resentment is the same amount of energy it takes to release it.

Forgiveness is not something we do for other people-we do it for ourselves to get well and move on!