There are so many sides to forgiveness that people don’t seem to acknowledge. So many times I hear it as if it’s like there is this simple steps to forgive and yet for anyone who actually knows, there is so much more to it than that.
The bible is a book that you can not just pick and choose things out of, there are pieces that fit within each other all over the book and if you don’t understand one part you might miss the understanding in another.
When the question is posed, “How many times should I forgive someone?” and the answer is there really isn’t a limit, as a believer in The Eternal we are to always forgive a person, but in hearing this we don’t always hear another part to this… ‘We need to be like little children’ and how do little children act once they forgive a person? In my experience after there is forgiveness it never comes up again, it’s put in the past and everyone is happy.
Now for us as we get older it is harder to do this, we put in other components such as:
- ‘Well if they did this once they could do it again’
- ‘they hurt me and I need justice, so I need to hurt them’
we even justify it :
- ‘I need to teach them to never do this to someone else’
- ‘I need to make sure they (and everyone else) I’m no victim and they never dare mess with me again’
- ‘If I let them get away with this, it’ll be like telling people they can get away with it!’
I am not saying to roll over and let people get away with murder, and I’m not saying to turn a blind eye to wrong things that were done to you, but these things should not get in the way of you forgiving someone.
Forgiving someone isn’t about weather or not they will be punished, because lets face it; not every circumstance will allow you to be justified or even stop them from doing it again. But forgiveness isn’t for them, its for you and as The Eternal’s children we have to give our battles up to Him; allow Him to take care of that person in a way HE see’s fit, because trust me… Our Father cares and though He loves us all, He does get angry with a righteous anger and will allow punishment even if we may never see it.
We can get in the way of God’s plans if we decided to take things in our own hands, and the bible says ‘Make room for His wrath’ and if you think about it, if we decide to be angry forever who is that really hurting? We could and will end up missing out on some major happiness that Our God has in store for us, and what we can do is nothing compared to what The Lord can do.
Think of Jonah, when he could have been rejoicing in the fact that such an evil nation repented and he gained hundreds of new brothers and sisters in the Lord; he instead went away and waited in hoped to see them all get burnt up; he had absolutely no love for these ‘barbarians’ and then was pissed because they chose to follow the Lord and in turn were spared God’s wrath… He cared more about a weed (his own comfort) than human beings who had to deal with the guilt of all the evil they had done in their ignorance. That isn’t to say Jonah was a bad guy at all, but his attitude did not reflect one suiting of a prophet or in that matter a follower of God; he allowed hatred to be in his heart because of what the people had done; how they lived when all the while God knew and He gave them a chance; The Lord forgave them of their sinful natures and offered them understanding just as He does for us, so who are we to really condemn others when we don’t honestly know their hearts?
Sometimes people do bad things and just don’t realize the real darkness of what they do, then sometimes people do know what they are doing and just want to hurt others for whatever reason; maybe they were hurt and are just lashing out. The danger comes when we could end up just like them… Hurting others because we ourselves are hurting, because of what others have done and we couldn’t forgive and let go.
Forgiving someone is not a sign of weakness, it is quite the opposite because it’s easier to be mad at someone; to be consumed by hatred than it is to let something go.
Forgiving isn’t condoning what another has done, it is allowing yourself to start healing from what they have done.
Forgiving is not forgetting… When I look down at my foot, though its healed from an injury and doesn’t show any signs of the pain that was once there, I still remember what happened and I still remember the day; the moment it got injured and how long it took to heal… but I am okay with it now, it is in the past and I will remember what I can do to avoid it ever happening again, but I don’t dwell on it; it doesn’t anger me; I’m just more prepared and more knowledgeable of how to go about things the next time.
Because wounds are apart of life, this life; and we can be assured that people will always be around to hurt us now, rather they mean to or not. We will get hurt by people we care about and we will hurt others, but the better we equip ourselves in the ways of the Lord and learn to fight HIS way, the better life will be for us. Pain is part of the process but trials build character.
Now, why have I decided to talk about this? Because I have been reminded just how important it is to forgive. Like others, I have found that though I had believed I had forgiven I had not; I had only pushed it into the back of my mind and since I didn’t have to face this hurt I had believed I had gotten past it; that is until it was put into my face again and I had to deal with the fact I hadn’t let it go. I not only left it in the back of my mind to rot, but I had allowed that hurt to morph into something very unhealthy. One of the problems was the fact I never talked about it, I never told anyone how much I had been hurt; I had not shared my hurt in order to fully forgive… instead I gave excuses and tried to forget what happened, but forgiveness is very important my friends; it may not seem like it is a big deal; maybe you tell someone and they look at you weird because it hurt you; but no one else has walked in your shoes, no one else understands your mind except one… And that is Our Lord.
So first understand that its okay to be upset, it’s natural and it is human. The bible says there is a time for everything, you just have to make sure that time does not linger. BE ACTIVE, BE INTENTIONAL. You have to face this hurt, acknowledge that you are hurt and then pray, pray for guidance in the next steps in order to forgive the one who hurt you.
Read scripture, speak to those who are of faith for encouragement and express yourself in a health way. Faith takes work and so does forgiveness… It may not seem fair, but trust me… you will gain from it and you may even be able to help others in the trials of their own lives. Have faith that The Father hears you, sees you, that you mean something great to Him, have faith He can use your pain for His glory and trust that He will take care of everything, all you have to do is work to forgive and view this as an opportunity to grow stronger in our God
~QO
A Writer's Journal 