Forgiveness – what a loaded word! God wants us to forgive but what
exactly is forgiveness? And how do I do it? These were my questions as I began
my journey with forgiveness.
Let’s start with addressing the first question with my best definition. Forgiveness is the releasing of offense from your heart. Sometimes it helps to define what it’s not as we work towards figuring out what it is. Forgiveness doesn’t mean instant healing. Choosing to forgive actually begins the journey of healing. It begins the process of releasing negative emotion from your heart. Without forgiveness, you can hold the negative emotion inside indefinitely. A myriad of physical, mental and emotional health problems can result. Forgiveness also does not mean reconciliation. For full reconciliation of relationship to happen (according to God’s role modeling), there must be true repentance and forgiveness working together. While reconciliation is dependent on repentance, forgiveness is not. We are called to forgive regardless of repentance.
So how do we forgive? We first must calculate the debt (Matthew 18:21-35). In accounting terms, you cannot write off what you have not calculated; you cannot let go of what you do not acknowledge is there. To calculate the debt, ask yourself: What did the offense do to me? What did it cost me? How did it make me feel? What wrong messages did it send to me? What lies did it cause me to believe about myself? Or about God? Then, we hand it all over to Jesus (1 Peter 5:7). We will need God’s grace – which is his power and enablement – to accomplish this. Forgiveness is something we choose to do regardless of feelings. That is the good news; we don’t have to feel like it to do it.
I invite you to pray with me:
Father God, will you please help me to identify and release all of the hurt, offense, pain and trauma. Help me to not use it for self-protection. Please help me with good boundaries in cooperation with you for my protection.
(Place hand on heart): Jesus, I give
you all of this hurt, all of this negative emotion, all of the wrong messages
that were sent and caused me to believe the wrong thing and all of the wrong
decisions, actions and directions I went in because of this and I ask you to
take it all away. Will you please fill in those places with more of you and
more of your peace, love, joy, comfort, etc.
I now release ___ (WHO)_________
from my judgment and hand them to you, Jesus.
Jesus, will you please shine your
healing light and heal my heart. Please correct all of the damage done and
bring me into alignment with you. Thank you, Jesus.