Let Forgive Others

  Importance Of 'Forgiveness'

Forgiveness is one of the hardest teachings of life. It's one of the most essential.  I think people think other things are harder than forgiveness, but man, if you've ever been hurt, forgiveness is one of THE most radical and most difficult teachings of life. "God, don't forgive me if I don't forgive those who've hurt me." Like that's kind of what we pray: forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And so we realise like, the stakes are really, really high when it comes to forgiveness. And so what happens is this, is a lot of times people struggle with forgiveness, like what does it mean? So I want to tell you what it means. Well, a little bit of what it means. First thing, forgiveness doesn't mean you're no longer hurt. Forgiveness doesn't mean that you have to be friends with this person again and forgiveness doesn't mean that you trust them.

How can it forgive others who have harmed us how can we forgive others who have harmed us this is an essential crowning virtue on the spiritual part until you have mastered this virtue of learning how to forgive you have not really entered the spiritual realm because every little thing will pull you down we are living in a world of imperfect people we can never expect that nobody will harm us we can never expect that nobody will do things wrong to us this is going to happen again and again supposing I ask you has anybody ever wronged you everybody will put up their hands yes poverty it was my relatives might so and so my boss my subordinate then it happens to everybody now supposing you don't forgive what is the consequence the consequence is that your mind gets filled overcome with resentment. Resentment is such a terrible thing it’s like pouring and toxic waste into your mind

 Now again, those are huge things. Sometimes, people think that forgiveness means like, "OK, I mean, it's OK. I don't feel bad anymore." or "I'm not angry anymore" or "I FEEL like I've forgiven them." You don't have to feel like you've forgiven anyone at any point because forgiveness is not a matter of feeling, it's a decision. You don't have to not be hurt anymore because, a lot of times. The stuff that people have done against us really really hurts us, and so you don't have to be past that hurt in order to be able to forgive or else we'd be stuck, you know, while we're still hurting.

 And thirdly, you don't have to trust the person again in order to know that you've forgiven them, because sometimes if someone's hurt you, they've kind of demonstrated that you shouldn't trust them. And so, to trust them again would more be foolish than it would be forgiveness. So how do we understand forgiveness? Well, I think we can only understand forgiveness in terms of justice, which means this: Justice is what I owe another person or what another person owes me. And so, when it comes to forgiveness, it's essentially saying, "I'm not going to make you pay me back what you owe me”

 Justice means, "I know what they owe me." I know what they owe me. And if you've been hurt by someone or many people, incredibly, I think one step is, in a healthy place, if you could write down "What does someone owe you?" What does that person owe you? Like, what are all the things they've taken from you? Like, you know, you could say the person has hurt me and they cost me trust. Their actions against me have influenced my relationships, it's influenced this, and it’s influenced how I see myself. It's affected all these kind of things. To weigh it up, I mean, to really count the cost in some ways, that's justice; that's what they owe you. But then, the next step is really important too. It's just as important. It's then looking at this list and then saying, "OK, with God's grace, I set you free. With God's grace, I'm not gonna make you pay me back.

 We can still hurt; again, we can still experience those wounds. We still have to maybe make the decision again and again to forgive but a huge thing that forgiveness does, is it gives us the freedom to move forward. We're not anchoring ourselves by holding on to someone by the throat saying, "Pay me back what you owe me," We're saying, "You know what? It was a huge deal that you did. It was a big deal. It was- I counted the cost. This is all what you owe me, but I release you from your debt. I won't make you pay me back what you owe me and I'm gonna move on here, with God's help." We can only do this with God's grace and so, I invite you, before you do any of this stuff, ask the Holy Spirit to come and help you. Ask God to guide your actions and your thoughts and just trust the Father in all this.

Forgive others not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace...