I had to go back in my blog posts and make sure I hadn’t already covered this subject, and I was a bit surprised to find that it had never come up, or at least not in the titles of my blogs. Recently I’ve been thinking about forgiveness and since I don’t think I’ve even done a blog post about it, I guess it’s time to.
Well, I was reading this morning in Matthew 18 about the servant who was forgiven a huge debt by his master and then didn’t show forgiveness to his fellow servant who only owed him a small amount of money. When his master found out he got pretty upset and threw the unforgiving servant in prison. At the end of the parable Jesus says “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
Now don’t get me wrong, just because I’m a Christian and know a lot of facts about Jesus and the Bible, doesn’t mean that actually doing what God says is easy. I try to obey God, including when it’s doing something hard, like forgiving someone. But there are times when it just feels impossible. What that person said or did just hurt so much, was so unfair, and my heart does not want to forgive. At those times, I have to ask for help. God forgave me, of everything I’ve ever done, the times I ignored Him, when I didn’t do what He specifically told me to do, when I was lazy or selfish or prideful or arrogant. And He is able to help me forgive others.
And I know when He asks me to forgive, it really is for my own good. Letting go of those hurts is hard, yes, but holding onto them is painful too. I’ve seen so many people lose relationships because they couldn’t forgive. Those hurts may feel like huge things to let go of, but what God has forgiven us of is even greater. And we didn’t deserve His forgiveness any more than our friends and relatives deserve ours.
So anyway, that’s what I’ve been learning recently, and I thought I’d share and encourage you to show forgiveness today.
NovelSisters 
That picture really draws you in.
Thanks for bringing up the topic. Forgiveness is something we have almost all forgotten and something our society needs to incorporate more of as an ethos 🙂
Yeah, it took me awhile to find a good picture, but I’m glad it drew you in. 🙂
Thanks for the comment!