Forgiveness is Divine.....Loh #250.

When I saw the prompt for the week, I knew without a doubt that I must add my voice and speak out because there are so many who think they are living life but sadly, they are just existing and not enjoying the essence of life at all.

Forgiveness simply means to let go of an offender and the offender, treating him or her as not guilty.

Frankly speaking, forgiveness is difficult but only to those who try to do it on their own strength. God is not wicked. If He asks us to forgive others their wrongs, then it means that there must be a way of help for us when we choose to obey Him.

When betrayals and offences crop up in our lives, we feel like tearing the offender apart and skinning them raw but this is not the way God intended for us to live because if the search light was put on us, we would discover that we have also hurt people one way or the other.

Ever heard the saying To Err is human but to forgive is Divine. This is so true. We need more than physical strength to forgive people. It requires supernatural help.

Is forgiveness beneficial?

My unbiased answer is yes. Forgiveness is beneficial to the one who was wronged and also to the offender. When we forgive people their offences done to us, we reciprocate the love of God to them.

This in turn liberates our soul, allowing overflowing peace to enter us, keeping us joyful and in right standing with God. It also reflects the love of God to the offender and in many cases, the offender is won over to God's side. This is a win for God's kingdom.

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Should we always forgive?

Again, my unbiased answer is yes. We need to understand that forgiveness helps us first before it even helps the offender. Why would I give up on something that would be beneficial to me because of someone else. Honestly, no one is worth losing my peace for. Hence, I will always forgive a wrong done to me.

It is also important to note that in as much as we should forgive offenders always, we should be wise and not allow ourselves to fall into the very thing that caused the offence to come about in the first place.

Also, forgiveness is not always immediate nor is it a verbal affair alone. Just saying I forgive you to an offender might not be enough in most cases. Sometimes, you would have to kneel in prayer, shed those tears and honestly release the offender from your heart. You might have to do this repeatedly until you feel that knot of unforgiveness dissipate from your heart and you can look at the offender freely.

Let me illustrate with this simple example…

I got hurt many years ago while at my hostel. I tried flipping fried eggs in a pan but I mistakenly spilled hot oil on my wrist. For days, I felt the pain. I used drugs and creams and all to ease the pain. After a while, the burns healed but it left a scar on my wrist.

Initially, whenever I looked at the scar, I trembled because I remembered the pain but soon, I learnt to look at my scar and not feel the pain that I once felt when the injury was fresh*.

This is just what forgiveness is. The hurts and betrayals will hurt and might even leave a scar in your heart but you must let go to the point that even when you recall or see the scar, you no longer feel the pain anymore.

*Forgiveness does not erase the offense, rather it releases the pain behind the offense. This is where I have an issue with that phrase forgive and forget. This is not true because we have our memories and from time to time, something will jog up our memory to that hurt. How you know that you have forgiven is when you can recall the offense and not feel the pain anymore in your heart.

So I guess the saying should be forgive and forget the pain.

Why forgive someone who doesn't deserve forgiveness?

My answer to this is that every human deserves forgiveness. Since we received forgiveness freely from God when we didn't deserve it, we should also reciprocate the same to our offenders. This is expedient and beneficial to our peace of mind.

Note as well that forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation. There are times you will forgive but you will not need to bring the offender back into your circle until they have proven to have changed. A good example of this is with Joseph in the Bible who put his eleven brothers to a test before bringing them into his space.

I can recommend two good movies that portray the power of forgiveness. One is The shack and the other is ** The forge**.

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I hope that I have been able to convince a beautiful soul out there that forgiveness pays a lot and we can't live life to the fullest without it

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Thanks for reading.

Images used are mine.