Choosing Forgiveness:
Your Journey to Freedom
by
Nancy Leigh DeMoss
Forgiveness (or unforgiveness) is a topic many of us don’t really like to talk about. We may even feel that it’s not an issue for us. But very few people in the world harbor zero bitterness in their hearts over some form of injustice. We’ve all been hurt. Have you ever felt irritated or lashed out at someone and didn’t even know why? Could it be that something sparked a bit of bitterness or resentment smoldering beneath the surface of your heart? There are two ways to respond to hurt and injustice. You can either keep count, or you can let go.
Living with Unforgiveness
Often, we think we’ve forgiven when we’ve really only pushed the hurt down and ignored it or denied it. In the foreword of the book, David Jeremiah says, “The effort to stuff our hurts below the reach of conscious memory is like trying to hold a fully inflated beach ball under water. The slightest shift in pressure and off it goes, shooting off beyond control.” If this happens to you, consider it an opportunity to face the hurt for what it is and to ask God to help you forgive. Otherwise, bitterness festers and grows and corrupts the heart.
Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.
Choosing to Forgive
God cares about our hurts. He doesn’t ask us to bury them and pretend they never happened, but He does ask us to forgive. He commands it. But He doesn’t expect us to do it on our own power. He gives us the grace we need to forgive when we ask for it. We just have to make the choice and be willing to let go and trust God to bring justice in His way, in His time.
The outcome of our lives is not determined by what happens to us, but by how we respond to what happens to us. – Nancy Leigh DeMoss
