Life without forgiveness
Whatever your story, you would have needed someone to forgive you or to forgive someone at some point in your life. Maybe, you accidentally stepped on someone’s feet, maybe you broke your co-worker’s special coffee mug, or you forgot to pick up the children after school. Even more unforgiving, maybe you have broken someone’s heart or didn’t keep a promise. The reality is that life consists of relationships and in relationships, we relate with each other, we live with each other, we communicate and seek to do what is necessary to get along, because we need each other.
If we are to enjoy healthy relationships with our family and friends, we need to learn how to be sensitive, how to say sorry and how to forgive. We need to be in a place where we can quickly reflect on our actions and realize when we’ve gone off track. The ability to test your attitude and actions and identify areas needing improvement, is a valuable personality trait that you should never take for granted.
Life without forgiveness is selfish, lonely and empty. It is through forgiveness we can overcome bitterness and hate, the presence of which would drained you of all your creative thoughts and juices. Your energies will be sapped because your focus is on toxic material that can only destroy you.
Even though forgiving is often hard to do, if you are determined in your mind to forgive and you are doing things to allow you to arrive at that place, you will eventually get there.
If you choose not to forgive, you will rob yourself of the opportunity of having a healthy relationship with those concerned. If you choose not to forgive, you will not be able to enjoy sweet communion with God, you see we cannot expect to go to him and receive forgiveness if we are refusing to forgive our Father, Employer, Daughter or Pastor. It does not work that way.
I believe we all agree that life without forgiveness is miserable so PLEASE, let it go.
Struggling to forgive someone? Here are some practical “to-do’s”
- If you can, engage them and let them know that they have hurt you or they did something you did not like.
- They may not agree that they have hurt you or apologise; that’s ok, you have expressed yourself.
- Pray that they would realise what they did wrong.
- Try to let it go by thinking good thoughts of them only.
- Whenever you see them, do not avoid or ignore them; be ready to greet them and show genuine concern for their well being
- Embrace any opportunity to reach out to then or extend kindness to them.
Struggling with the fact that someone is not willing to forgive you?
- Review the events to ensure that at some point you did engage the person and told them you were sorry. If you did not, then you should do so right away.
- Once that is done, give them time, don’t pressure them. Some hurts go very deep and people need time to come to terms with what has happened and gradually release the burden of the past.
- Do not take their feelings lightly, we are all different.
- Do you very best to avoid hurting that person again; don’t pressure yourself trying to be perfect however.
- Do not complain to others about the individual’s unwillingness to forgive. It may seem like unwillingness to you, but instead they are struggling to let it go.
- Pray works wonders, keep praying for them.
To be continued……
