This morning I’ve had the topic of “forgiveness” on my mind. It means different things to different people, but it usually means that you feel that someone has “done you wrong,” and you’re not willing to let it go. While you think that you’re hurting that other person because of what they did to you – it’s really destroying your soul inside. They may not even be aware that you still hold a grudge against them. It’s not bothering them, but it can cost you your soul, if you can’t “bless their hearts” and move on.
Some people blame God for the events of their lives. When someone dies, you lose your job, or your house burns and there is no one else to blame – you blame God. Are you mad at God for something that you perceive that He did? When we study His Word, we can see that being a Christian, a child of God, doesn’t mean that life is “a bed of roses.” In fact, in II Corinthians 4:8-9, Paul said, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down, but not destroyed.” Yes, bad things happen to good people. “Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf” (I Peter 4:16). God put the laws of nature in place. The law of inertia may cause a distracted driver to cross the yellow line. The law of gravity may cause a distressed plane to come down. One sick person can start a pandemic, but God isn’t to blame.
I think that the hardest person to forgive is to forgive ourselves. Have you ever caused pain to those that you love? Have you said words that you wish you could take back, but they are now “out there?” We have all said and done things that we regret. But after you have asked forgiveness from God, and you’ve asked forgiveness from the person that you’ve wronged, then, it’s time to “let go, and let God” take care of it. Paul got to that point when he was able to say that he was “forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
May you search your heart to see if you need to forgive others, God, and even yourself. For that is the only way to have “the peace of God, which passes all understanding, and keeps our hearts and mind (thoughts) through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). This, my Friends, is my wish for you, for we are all “simply blessed,” Courtney