I've been reading a blogging sister's journey with her husband as his condition worsens due to COPD. He is now receiving palliative care. Her words are so touching as she describes letting go. Her post from a few days ago reminds me of my last serious conversation with my father 2 weeks before he died. I think (not realizing it that day) the topic of conversation in a sense gave my father permission to leave this home for his real home in heaven and I was letting go.
Americans frequently say I've learned to let _____________ go, whether it's a person or a situation. Many times however, we want to or justify holding on to something such as anger, a grudge, bitterness and or unforgiveness. When we hold on to those things, we are no longer living in spiritual freedom.
Most of us learned the Lord's Prayer as youngsters and may say it in each church service we attend. Do we really think about what the words say:
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
What about the verses which immediately follow the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6: 14-15
For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive yours.
I'm not saying forgiveness always comes instantly when we decide to forgive someone or something. I am saying let go and let God. Choose to forgive, choose to let go of the the fruit of unforgivness. Yield to the Holy Spirit. Our Father would not tell us to forgive if it were not possible.
1 comment:
Forgiveness is a choice not a feeling. I love Corrie Ten Boom's story of how she in obedience reached out to take the offered hand of the German prison guard asking her forgiveness. He had attended one of her speeches years after her release from Ravensbruck. It was not until she obeyed that God then filled her up with the feelings of forgiveness.
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