Let's Get Serious about Forgiveness

Forgiveness is without question a bridge builder to transforming individual lives and relationships. Forgiveness has the potential for creating a change in negative feelings and attitudes. Forgiveness lays the groundwork for healthy, rewarding relationships. Yet there seems to be reluctance for trusting forgiveness to accomplish this task.

Perhaps forgiveness fails because it isn't taken seriously. A person should not be pressured into offering or receiving forgiveness when they are not prepared to do so. When forgiveness is offered, it may open old wounds and the pain may seem too difficult to tolerate, so forgiveness is rejected. Yet forgiveness heals old wounds.

If forgiveness is to be successful, each individual must desire it. Forgiveness cannot be coerced if it is to be effective, but it must be sought after like a person seeking after God. "When you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you search for him with all your heart."  Forgiveness parallels that search. 

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But even there, if you seek God, your God, you’ll be able to find him if you’re serious, looking for him with your whole heart and soul. When troubles come and all these awful things happen to you, in future days you will come back to God, your God, and listen obediently to what he says. God, your God, is above all a compassionate God. In the end he will not abandon you, he won’t bring you to ruin.

~Deuteronomy 4:29-31 The Message