Forgiveness: It’s a Work in Progress

How hard is it to forgive everything anyone does to you? How hard is it to forgive completely and promptly after they’ve wronged you? It almost seems impossible to do, especially in this day and time where selfishness is growing more popular than selflessness.

But we have to forgive. In order to be forgiven, we must forgive.

Forgiveness is not a matter of choosing to do so, but a matter of knowing that we must do so. It’s just so hard—even if it involves forgiving ourselves for something we’ve done wrong.

We know that God directs us to forgive others but let’s be real…God is god and we definitely are not. Forgiving is a task that is hard for imperfect people like us to do. It shouldn’t be, but it is. That’s why we must strive to be consistently lined up with the likeness of God, who is capable of forgiving everyday all day.

He can give us the strength and courage to forgive.

We will certainly need that strength too. I know each one of us has been heartbroken, lied too, mistreated, abused emotionally and/or physically, betrayed…it all hurts. We all need to be healed from something.

The first step toward healing is forgiving.

Yes, it’s a work in progress but we must learn complete forgiveness. Even as I write this I am convincing my mind over and over again that it’s just the right thing to do—no matter what. We often remove ourselves from bad situations, choosing to leave instead of forgive.  The thing is, we can escape from the situation all day but we can never really escape from the hurt. We still hinder ourselves from healing because we don’t forgive those who antagonize us. We think that when we forgive them we make them feel better about what they’ve done. So not true. We essentially help us feel better about moving on. We set us free.

Remember, after you forgive you can’t continue to condemn.

Whether you choose to stay connected to that person or not, when you forgive them you are setting them free from blame too. Just as we aren’t condemned in Christ, we can’t hold them in condemnation either. Forgiveness is a work in progress that involves accepting what that person has done but choosing to immediately let it go.
We forgive to feel peace. We can’t feel true peace if we’re still holding what they did to us in our heart.

So, who will you be forgiving today?