When I Need Help Forgiving

Devotional

You know how a song gets stuck in your head and keeps playing whether you want it to or not?

Not forgiving somebody works like that.

Somebody hurt you, and now it plays on repeat. You hear what they said again. You see their face again. And every time it plays it stings a little.

And part of you wants to keep it. Because letting it go feels like saying it was fine.

It wasn't fine. And forgiving somebody doesn't mean pretending it was.

So what is forgiving, then?

It isn't a feeling. It isn't forgetting.

It's deciding that you're going to stop making them pay you back for it.

And that is really hard. It might be one of the hardest things God asks anybody to do.

So why does he ask?

Because he did it first. And it cost him a lot.

The Bible says, "You, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love."

God isn't grumpy about forgiving. But it was never cheap either. It cost him his Son. Jesus went to the cross and took all of it. Every mean word anybody ever said. Every lie. Every time somebody got left out on purpose.

He took all of that so God could look at people like us and say: forgiven.

One day Peter asked Jesus how many times he had to forgive somebody who kept doing the same thing to him. He guessed seven, and he probably thought that was pretty generous.

Jesus said, "Not seven times, but seventy-seven times."

He wasn't giving Peter a number to count to. He was saying there isn't a limit. Because God's forgiving of you doesn't have a limit either.

And notice how Paul says it: "Forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."

Read the order. It doesn't say forgive people so God will forgive you. It says God already forgave you, so now you can pass it on.

You're not earning anything. You're handing over something you already got.

Now, this usually doesn't happen all at once.

Sometimes you forgive somebody and then the memory shows up again the next morning and you have to decide again. Sometimes it takes weeks before it stops stinging.

That's normal. The Bible even uses a word for it: "bearing with one another." That means it takes some time and some strength.

But here's why it's worth it.

Forgiving sets you free. Not just them. You.

When you hold onto what somebody did, you carry it everywhere. To school. To dinner. To bed.

Forgiving doesn't say the hurt was nothing. It says the hurt is real, and I'm handing it to God instead of hauling it around.

So ask him for help with it.

You can't do this on your own, and he doesn't expect you to.

Start there.