Forgiveness
Today I am faced with a decision, one that needs serious prayer but one that cannot wait for the answer to follow. So I turned first to the daily email reading that is sent to me. I confess ... I've missed a couple of days so I went first to the oldest, November 24th, and found that the message for that day was forgiveness. Then I turned to the daily Scripture reading plan that I've started. Today's passages were 1 Corinthians 6 - 8. Chapter 6 begins with disputes among believers. So at this point, I am certain of God's leading yet I'm not ready to deal with it. So I checked out the blogs of those that I normally read...and there it was again, reference to cynicism, stubbornness and just a plain bad attitude. Hmmmm. But it is something in the reading on forgiveness that strikes me...
John Eldredge in his book, "Captivating" says this, "Forgiveness is a choice. It is not a feeling – don’t try and feel forgiving. It is an act of the will. “Don’t wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving,” wrote Neil Anderson. “You will never get there. Feelings take time to heal after the choice to forgive is made . . .” We allow God to bring the hurt up from our past, for “if your forgiveness doesn’t visit the emotional core of your life, it will be incomplete.” We acknowledge that it hurt, that it mattered, and we choose to extend forgiveness to our father, our mother, those who hurt us. This is not saying, “It didn’t really matter”; it is not saying, “I probably deserved part of it anyway.” Forgiveness says, “It was wrong. Very wrong. It mattered, hurt me deeply. And I release you. I give you to God."
It might help to remember that those who hurt you were also deeply wounded themselves. They were broken hearts, broken when they were young, and they fell captive to the Enemy. They were in fact pawns in his hands. This doesn’t absolve them of the choices they made, the things they did. It just helps us to let them go – to realize that they were shattered souls themselves, used by our true Enemy in his war against femininity."
So, I will not wait for the feeling to overtake me. I will make the choice. The choice to forgive.
John Eldredge in his book, "Captivating" says this, "Forgiveness is a choice. It is not a feeling – don’t try and feel forgiving. It is an act of the will. “Don’t wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving,” wrote Neil Anderson. “You will never get there. Feelings take time to heal after the choice to forgive is made . . .” We allow God to bring the hurt up from our past, for “if your forgiveness doesn’t visit the emotional core of your life, it will be incomplete.” We acknowledge that it hurt, that it mattered, and we choose to extend forgiveness to our father, our mother, those who hurt us. This is not saying, “It didn’t really matter”; it is not saying, “I probably deserved part of it anyway.” Forgiveness says, “It was wrong. Very wrong. It mattered, hurt me deeply. And I release you. I give you to God."
It might help to remember that those who hurt you were also deeply wounded themselves. They were broken hearts, broken when they were young, and they fell captive to the Enemy. They were in fact pawns in his hands. This doesn’t absolve them of the choices they made, the things they did. It just helps us to let them go – to realize that they were shattered souls themselves, used by our true Enemy in his war against femininity."
So, I will not wait for the feeling to overtake me. I will make the choice. The choice to forgive.
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