What do you do when people mistreat you or those you love? Does the fire of anger boil within you, with leaping flames consuming your emotions? or do you reach somewhere, to some source of cool water and pull out a bucket of mercy, to free yourself? Is there any emotion that imprisons the soul more than the unwillingness to forgive?
Don't get on the roller coaster of resentment and anger. You be the one who says, "Yes, he mistreated me, but I am going to be like Christ, I'll be the one who say, "Forgive them, Father, they don't know what they're doing."
The first step toward forgiveness is to see the other person as a human being, not as a source of hurt. That's how God treated us with mercy, he became one of us, he felt as we feel, he understood our frustrations. And as a result, when he hung on the cross, he could look at those crucifying him and ask God to forgive them.
When you forgive someone, you are as close to God as you will ever be, because in that forgiveness you are demonstrating the very heart of God, the merciful king. If you want to understand God, if you want to draw closer to him, than forgive someone today.
Father, sometimes forgiving others seems impossible. Forgive us when we hesitate to extend grace to others. And remind us that revisiting the cross is the first step in knowing how to forgive.
The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear. Any cup-shaped object placed over the ear produces the same effect.
