Forgive One Another - Learning How To Forgive And, Forget (Day 2)

FORGIVE ONE ANOTHER, As I have forgiven you

What is it?

It is to arrive at a destination where the things others have done to me do not hurt me anymore and I do not hold them accountable. Going by the words of Jesus, we cannot say we are tired of being mistreated and forgiving. We allow ourselves not to be victims anymore by choosing to walk past present hurts onto a new slate every time we are injured, mistreated or hurt. Jesus said to forgive our brother (one person) 70*7 each day. Essentially what He was saying was that, whenever one wrongs me, I treat them as if it was the first time they were wronging me because the last time they wronged me I forgave them. We issue a blank slate each time we forgive so all sins are erased. That is the kind of forgiveness our father in heaven showed us. Justified – Just as if I never sinned

In the past two years, I have faced issues that daunted me as a Christian and I did not know how to deal with them when very close family members wronged me in such a way that I found myself unable to truly forgive. The non-forgiveness of others has the potential of unleashing the horrible spirit of non-forgiveness in us.

We could have genuinely hurt others but they refused to forgive us. When people refuse to forgive us, they unleash more evil than they imagine possible and let the enemy influence the sphere of their existence birthing non- forgiveness and evil deeds in their lives too.

How do I know this?

Well, whenever we fail to forgive we invite the enemy into our lives to torment not only us but those close to us. We are bitter because the law of sin is at work in us. Sin begets sin and so does non-forgiveness. That is why Jesus declared we ought to forgive as He had forgiven us. Christ demonstrated the act of forgiveness by not treating those who mistreated him with the same kind of vengeance they dished out to him. His quietness was a quietness of forgiveness during the passion. At the cross, having forgiven us, He asked the father who is the ultimate holder of forgiveness to forgive those who beat him up, hailed insults at him and nailed him to the cross. He died free and would not leave the effects of evil to reign over the people that had just done him so much evil. When he breathed his last, there was silence, darkness, then an earthquake. God was clearly angry but no one was killed because of the earthquake, which would have possibly happened. No one died, Christ interceded and even God in his anger heard the cry of his son and forgave, not imputing justice of the kind we would anticipate in such circumstances. The blood of Jesus was at work already.

Over the years, many things have happened to me and thinking that I was a very forgiving person, I got myself into a place of needing forgiveness when the accumulation of anger over things that happened to me made my heart so hard I slowly began to hold on to them. Whenever I held on to them, I felt justified, a lot angrier at the other people and opened the way for bitterness toward them and the spirit of non-forgiveness (oh how sweet too) began to reign in me. I wanted to do only things that would hurt these people because they hurt me. I felt that by forgiving them, I was letting them go free but I wanted them punished and my behavior would be punishment enough. It could have all began when I got married and my father in law would not attend our wedding. My husband and I felt justifiably angry about their reasons for not attending our most important days. Obviously, my father in law may have had his own misgivings and one thing led to another. i.e. when I felt left out at my husband’s step grandmother’s death. I then felt left out at my brother in law’s wedding. Little things added up and I was growing bitter by the day. I do not know if others were really just mistreating me or I was extra sensitive. Of course the accumulation of non-forgiveness led to more distance and of course more resentment from the others until it was out of hand.

My husband and I began to have our little differences for which he definitely felt reluctant to forgive me for as well. So all these misgivings eventually led to the final showdown in the past three years when the battle left the bedroom and went to the streets, homes, balconies, living rooms and Sunday school classes of our families, friends and acquaintances, even strangers sometimes. Well, we had gathered enough seeds to build a major farm and we were in for a bumper harvest of all that is evil. It culminated in a house so dissected and filled with anger it was difficult to grow in any direction or be objective. Of course, prior to this, we had seen the non-forgiveness of others unleashed on us for things we did not think we did. It was almost as if the whole world had turned against us and we turned against one another. There was so much non-forgiveness in our house, it took very little to rattle the hornet’s nest and send all those stinging creatures to us in every part of our house. In-fact there was such an escalation and breeding of real life pests, they were everywhere and made me particularly angry. We never let up on the anger and non-forgiveness we had towards one another. The more my husband spoke about the evil I had done him, the more unforgiving I became toward him and unfortunately almost toward anybody I knew or just thought he talked to about me.

I find that these are the first things I have to conquer in my life and in our home. Healing must begin here in my house and then I will inevitably extend the palm branch to everyone else, all around the world. I will enjoy this journey because I can feel it in my bones, blood and whole person. It will be a joyful journey.