On the VERY DAY they tried to kill me, I chose to forgive them…and on those days over the course of the next year when I had 6 hour physical therapy sessions, appointments with the Psychiatrist or had to take meds to learn to live normally again, I had the opportunity to choose to forgive them over and over again… And on those days when I wanted to hate them, I learned that “forgiveness isn’t a feeling, it’s a choice”.
Why was Jesus so emphatic on the subject of Forgiveness, even stating that if you have something against someone else, then you shouldn’t even give an offering at church until it is addressed and resolved?!
The Bible says, “God’s not mocked, for whatever a man sows that shall he also reap…” but when it comes to unforgiveness, Jesus said, don’t even plant additional “good seed” in the soil of your life until the unforgiveness is addressed.
I wonder if it’s possible that sowing unforgiveness produces its own harvest. And what it births in our lives can ultimately keep us from experiencing the fullness of what God would have for us.
When you harbor bitterness and unforgiveness, it’s as though you are holding on to the person that hurt you and dragging them with you everywhere you go… and the weight of it is exhausting. You simply can’t run a good race carrying a dead, decaying body on your back…
Forgiveness does not mean we are saying it’s “okay” or that we are simply going to forget what happened… It means we are choosing to let go of the person who is weighing us down so that we can move forward without the weight of our bitterness holding us back.
Sometimes you choose one day to forgive and then next day have to let them go again… That’s okay… Release them again, and again, and again until your feelings line up with your choice and your choice becomes your experience.
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you”. – Lewis B. Smedes
Do you have a story of how forgiveness has liberated you? I’d love to hear it and so would those who are learning themselves to forgive. Leave your story in the comments.