CAN YOU FORGIVE ME?

The words “I’m sorry” are so easy to say. I think I say it way too much. It is almost an automatic. True forgiveness though, has little to do with words. GOD forgives us freely. The slate is wiped clean. Write on- write-off. DONE! There is ABSOLUTELY nothing that we can do that absolves us from that forgiveness.

We humans however, hold on to unforgiving spirits like a miser holding onto his money. OH, we may say, I am sorry but the heart says different. The way to know this is the “bringing back up” theory. I truly just made that up. It is the way we operate. We forgive and do not forget. We attach everyone’s wrongs and bad-doings to them and bring it back up as soon as the circumstance allows. I do it all the time.

Husband and wife fight, and all of a sudden those items from fifteen years ago come sprawling back into the middle of an argument that has nothing to do with those items to begin with. Why do we do that? Why is it that my memory is horrid but I cannot forget the bad things? I carry them around like an over-sized and overstuffed suitcase. They say an elephant never forgets… well I say people do not forget.

JESUS forgets. Once we repent, it is gone. WE may have consequences to deal with due to behavior in the past but the love of JESUS remains. HIS arms are wide and his memory is nil.

I want to learn how to say I am sorry less but have a forgiving heart more. Do you realize that an unforgiving heart also leads to judgment? Who knows why we hold onto past grievances from the past? Justifiably there probably may be sufficient reasons like deep childhood wounds. How do we get past them? How do we make peace with them?  There is only two ways…. A willingness and by the grace of GOD!

If you are ready, then you can ask GOD for the willingness and then the rest will come along. What do you have to lose? Actually you should ask “what do you have to gain”. Peace is one, the ability to experience joy, the healing of a relationship, the ability to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and be ok. Sometimes the unforgiven you harbor and that is weighing you down is not even about another, it is about your own self. The inability to forgive yourself.

DEAR FATHER:

YOU know our heart and our deep dark secrets and love us anyway. I ask that you give me that ability to be able to see myself and others as YOU see me. JESUS I thank you that you do not keep score and that you do not close doors based on what I have done. LORD, I thank YOU for YOUR forgiveness that YOU freely provide to me each and every day because each and every day I sin. GOD, thank you for loving me when I do not have the strength to love myself or belief that I am lovable. IN THE NAME OF THE MOST HIGH, JESUS CHRIST I pray and give thanks, AMEN!

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