Today I thought we would dive right into a fun topic we all enjoy… Forgiveness. Specifically 3 steps to forgiving people who have hurt us.
Boy oh boy, how tough forgiveness can be.
It’s one of those things that we love to receive, sing about, read books about… Shoot, we even love watching movies about it but then when it hits too close to home it becomes all to easy to justify not giving it.
We all know how toxic unforgiveness can be to our souls; let alone our physical bodies. We just were not made to live in unforgiveness.
I could write an entire book on unforgiveness but today we’ll just look at 3 short steps to get us started.
Step 1: Remember The Grace You Have Received
This one is so easy to overlook. When we are hurt, it’s easy to embrace that hurt and then in-turn view the situation through the lens of that pain.The curse of unforgiveness is we are never really free from it until we give it away.It’s like placing a red color gel over your lights. You might have a blue wall in your living room but that red gel is going to make it look like that wall is purple.
The curse of unforgiveness is we are never really free from it until we give it away. It always helps me to remember how much forgiveness and grace I have received from God and how I didn’t deserve any of it to wrangle that red gel back into clarity.
Step 2: Don’t Avoid The Awkward
Avoidance is not forgiveness. It can be a mutual resolution after forgiveness but it is not forgiveness itself. When you are hurt it often just seems easier to avoid the source of that hurt all together.
Taking time to heal from your hurt is helpful and I would highly recommend it. But, don’t remain in unforgiveness. There is healing in embracing the awkwardness that accompanies unforgiveness.
Step 3: Keep Forgiving
I think most of us, who have been through some situation that required us to forgive another person, know that often this is not a one-time deal. Sometimes at the oddest moments, like looking for that long lost Cumin in the spice cabinet, all that hurt tries to rush back and establish itself again in us.
It’s at those times where we have to remind ourselves of the forgiveness we gave and perhaps forgive again.
Forgiveness is a journey not a single-point destination. It’s a journey we take with our Father who enables us to forgive when every ounce of us says we can’t. He then uses that forgiveness to not only free us but to show His nature to others.
Again, there is so much more I could go into here about forgiveness but for the sake of keeping this post short, I’ll save them for another day.
Also, if you are having trouble with forgiving, please don’t beat yourself up. God is not up there waiting to smack you with His unforgiveness stick. Be honest. Talk to Him about it and ask for His help to forgive.Don’t expect magic wands. God likes to take the crock-pot approach.
Don’t expect magic wands.
God likes to take the crock-pot approach. Just be willing to take those small steps when He gives them to you and to be obedient.
A step toward forgiveness is a step away from unforgiveness; after enough steps you will find it awfully hard to look back and see the unforgiveness in the distance. The important thing is to keep stepping.
Have you ever had trouble forgiving? If so, what did you learn from that experience? Tell us about it below in the comments.
