forgiveness = flourishing
We are put on this planet with very little to speak of. Anyone who has ever encountered the possessive nature of a child knows they are at times fighting and scraping for all they can get. The idea of generosity and love is something that has to be taught with a deliberation by someone who has experienced the intrinsic benefits of community and love for others. The need to posses becomes more complex the older we get and such abstract things as offense or hurt are held on to for dear life. Long after the offender has left our lives (or forgotten all about the offense). The offended one continues to hold and relive the events that led up to them being hurt. Yet all the while the world continues to spin and no one is left who even remembers.
Our hearts are peculiar spiritual organs that were often referred to as the mind in the Bible. They seem to remember the scars of hurt much longer than the applause of encouragement or praise. Man has self-styled as some sort of cosmic cop who must hold on to all of the slights, offenses and hurts as if saving them up to exact revenge in the afterlife? This is a process that eats the spiritual health of our souls alive. Joyce Meyer puts it like this: “Holding on to unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was more succinct in his assessment: “There is no future without forgiveness”. As fires of longstanding conflicts rage across the world sometimes I dream of a forgiveness that allows the pain amassed over centuries to heal. Just like that toddler so many nations and people groups will need to let go of the offense that many cannot even remember the cause of, or maybe the problem is they can recall all too well. But I believe we can remember and honor the past without being chained to it. For in every context, from the workplace to home, we were made to grow in freedom.
