An Ordinary Life

Forgiveness

Forgiveness

My morning blurb this morning is going to be about forgiveness.

I am blessed to be able to forgive. I remember the exact moment I realized that.

As a child, the importance of forgiving others was made known to me through the Bible story about the rich man who forgave a debt. The debtor then went out and, instead of paying it forward as we say today, demanded full repayment of a debt owed him.

The rich man heard of it and the once forgiven man was chastised. As Jesus told the story, He told us we needed to forgive as we have been forgiven.

I am not doing the story justice but you probably know the story or at least get the general idea.

The main message was that if we want to be forgiven our trespasses, we need to forgive others theirs.

Since I definitely wanted to be forgiven, I was motivated to forgive.

There is a lot more to this story about forgiveness in my life but for this morning, I will give you the condensed version.

Forgiving others isn't always an easy thing to do. The only way I have successfully done it, it with God's help.

For years and years, when I would ask for God's help, I would reference the idea I just mentioned: I have been forgiven, I want to be forgiven, it is God's will for me to forgive -- and therefore, I was asking God's help to do just that.

Then came the day I prayed in my usual way and then suddenly realized how blessed I was to be able to forgive. Years and years and years of forgiving had prevented me from being filled with the poison of unforgiveness.

That day, I realized forgiving others was not just God's will but it was the best thing I could do -- for both them and ME!