You know that forgiveness that God so freely gives to us? Well, we are supposed to extend that to others.
How hard that is. Just as going to the Father to ask for forgiveness for our sins, lifts that burden and restores our sweet relationship. Forgiving that bully who purposefully pushes your buttons, and yanks your chain, lifts a burden and maintains a sweet relationship with your Father.
Unforgiveness takes the load of an offence and puts it on your back. You carry the memory of that offence and the hurt it caused you wherever you go. And it gets heavier with each offence.
When you take that burden to the Father and give it to Him, that is forgiveness. That bully didn’t ask for forgiveness and indeed he has no intention of EVER asking forgiveness, in fact he fully intends to continue bullying you forever. We are supposed to live in the spirit of forgiveness that God has extended to us.
It’s a vicious circle. We recognize we are supposed to forgive the bully, so we go to the Father and ask forgiveness for not doing that, but the bully hurts us again and we carry that resentment and we know we need to forgive him…..
But here’s the secret, we are not in this alone. The Holy Spirit is with us. Yes, we fail to forgive time and again, but when we pursue forgiveness, we release the Spirit to move. He can change our hearts. Making repeated forgiveness possible. WE DON’T DO IT! Indeed, we can’t do it: Only giving it to the Lord, and admitting that we can’t do it works.
It isn’t easy, and it takes a lifetime, but it does work.
Sweet forgiveness