"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Matthew 6:12 (KJV)
The other night I was watching Charles Stanley (In Touch Ministries.) I'll admit I don't usually watch him... But he said something that made a lot of sense and spoke to me about forgiveness. He talked about forgiving others and how we should go about it. I've said for years on this site that "forgiving doesn't mean forgetting and being around the person all the time and giving them the chance to do it again." While watching, I realized that I've been wrong. God forgives us and He gives us the chance to do it all to Him again because He doesn't disown us or say He'll have nothing to do with us anymore because He doesn't want the pain of us doing it again. God does forget about what we've done in the past when He forgives us, if He held onto it then none of us would be able to have any contact with Him. He wouldn't be active in any of our lives anymore if He held onto what we did in the past. We've all done things to hurt God, but through His grace He has forgiven us. We've done worse things to Him than people have done to us, so what gives us the right to hold a grudge? So, I'm retracting my statements about forgiving, but not forgetting because that's not true forgiveness.
Something else that made sense to me is that he said you can't just say in prayer that you forgive, and you can't just say it to yourself... You have to say it to the person you're forgiving. You have to make things right between you and the person you're forgiving. We have to acknowledge God's forgiveness for us and give over to Him all the grudges that we're holding. We have to ask for Him to help us forgive and then we have to take action in forgiving those we need to forgive. It's difficult if someone has done something really bad to you. Some have been raped, others have had their children murdered, etc. So, it's not going to be easy and it may take time to be able to truly forgive someone. Obviously if someone murdered a family member or raped you or a loved one, you're going to struggle to forgive and once you do forgive you're not going to be around that person afterwards. That would be dumb to give a rapist or murderer, etc a chance to strike again. But in most cases the person we need to forgive hasn't done something like that, so we can both forgive and forget. So, I still believe to an extent that there are cases where when you forgive you don't need to associate with that person anymore. It depends on the situation, obviously if you forgive a drug dealer you're not going to be hanging around their house (That too would be dumb.) Different situations do call for different actions: Say a family member stole from you or said something bad about you, you need to both forgive and forget. The forgetting part and associating with them again part is the only thing that might be different in every situation. No matter the situation we still need to find a way to forgive. I hope I'm making sense, but just in case I'm going to call it a day.
Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this message and for all things. Please forgive us of all our sins as we forgive all those who've sinned against us. Help us to be able to forgive anyone that we're struggling to forgive. Give us the wisdom to handle our situation and know what needs to be done. In Jesus name. A-men!
