It's worth forgiving

Forgiveness. It's a nice Christian word. We throw it about sometimes, especially when someone we know has been hurt. It's easy to remind people to forgive. It's even easy to tell them how to do it. 'It's simple', we say, 'just tell them that they hurt you but that you've forgiven them. All good? You be able to move on now.'

But wait, what about when we're the ones who need to do the forgiving? Yes, that's a bit tougher. Forgiveness doesn't mean pretending we've not been hurt. We may not be ready to hold hands and skip off into the sunset with the person who has wounded us, but it does mean we've handed our hurts over to the one who can deal with them. God sees what's going on. And he cares. 'You have stored my tears in your bottle' (Psalm 56:8 CEV).

Another good reason it's worth forgiving people who've hurt us: it's already been done for us. God has led by example on this one: 'Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you' (Ephesians 4:32 NIV). He looks at us, the people that let him down repeatedly, knowing that we will do it time and time again, and he still says 'Forgiven'. Now that's certainly something to be inspired by.



So what now? Have a chat about forgiveness with a close friend today. Ask them their experiences of being forgiven or of having to forgive someone else.





— SCRIPTURE —

'Be kind... forgiving each other.' Ephesians 4:32 NIV
— SOULFOOD —

1 Chr 16-18, John 9:13-23, Ps 105:1-15, Pro 25:23-25