Honorable Act
You
will all agree with me that as long as we are living in this fallen world which
still suffers from the impact of sin, we will every so often need to forgive or
to be forgiven. That is because in life
under the sun offence must come. Personally I can’t remember how many times I
had to forgive and was in need of forgiveness.
I have learnt that forgiveness can be either instantaneous or gradual
depending on the magnitude of the offence.
The hardest pill to swallow as a Christian is that you have to forgive (who
said Christianity was easy, living for God is the hardest job on earth!!!! (But
the most honourable). But the words of
Jesus are still living through the ages and they are simple you can’t misspell
them “forgive as your father has forgiven you” super oooouuch! Isn’t? . Forgiveness is like a journey, a journey
begins with an intention, you plan to get somewhere. No one boards a bus and
have way the trip starts wondering, where am I headed, (unless the wires upstairs
are incorrect or loose, for such help should be provided). So we embark on a
journey after we have decided on our destination, which in this case is
emotional freedom and healing. Deciding
to start this journey may not be as hard as the ability to stay focused, follow
through, to refuse distraction and actually get there. I have had to take this journey in the time
past and half way the trip the fresh memories of the offence would wash away
with great intensity all the strength I had gathered. A times the offender may
belittle your agony, sometimes they may repeat it again, they may come across
as non-remorseful, this can easily distract you from your goal or even weaken
you , you might actually decide to cut short the journey and justify the right to remain in offence.
It is at this point that you remind yourself this truth “it takes the will to
obey God not the emotions”. In the scriptures we see many times when David had
to address his will, e.g.” I will praise the Lord” he will pour out his overwhelming
negative emotions and lament on why God
can’t just ‘break somebody’s neck’ but then he would make a choice to overcome
those emotions and remain focused. I have trained myself to be honest with God and
speak to him about the difficulties I encounter as I try to obey him. This is
not your usual prayers it’s an honest chat with my dad….. . This conversation
with God leaves me very energized. It is in this kind of chats that God reminds
me that he had justifiable reasons not to forgive us without violating his
justice, but he had to sacrifice in order to forgive. It has to cost somebody
something for forgiveness to take place.
God accepted to give away his son because he was motivated by love. We can be motivated by our love for God, when
faced with the need to forgive, we can always choose between obeying God and
nursing our feelings and our rights, it not easy I know, but I said earlier
living for God is not easy. Honest
prayers for extra grace will see you through this most honourable act of
forgiving. I would like to hear from you
how you cope with forgiveness, the challenges you face and how you follow through.
