Forgiveness: A Command, Not an Option, By Kiara W.

Forgiveness: A Command, Not an Option.

By Kiara W.

I'm not sure about all of you, but I have always had a problem with forgiving others.

It's always been a struggle for me, if I just forgive them, who's to say they won't do the exact same thing again!

It never crosses my mind that God ALWAYS forgives us, regardless of what we did. And if he always forgives us, shouldn't we extend the same courtesy to others?

Scripture implies that we SHOULD forgive others, Ephesians 4:32 clearly states: "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

Simple enough.

Right?

Not really, for me anyways, here, I'll give you a personal example:

My bff betrayed my trust; that's not much of an example though, let's delve a bit deeper.

I have a best friend who's a guy, and one of my friends had a crush on him. So I asked him in a totally non-obvious way if he liked her, the answer was no. No big deal, but I kind of wanted to keep it a secret, so I only told my bff.

Later on, at my current best friend's house, we were being rowdy and my bff told us to be quiet, so asked her "What are you gonna do about it?" (now, this sounds kind of rude, but I'm always like that, and everyone accepts that) She replied with a coy: "I know all your secrets." I waved her off and continued.

Next thing I know, the friend that liked my guy bff is asking why I asked him if he liked her, and what he said.

Do you see why I wanted to keep it a secret?

She told me that my bff had told her. So I was on the phone with my bff later and she told me that somehow my friend had found out. I laughed and said: "C'mon, she told me you were the one who told her." She denied it.

But she was the only one I told, and when she denied ever telling my friend I got mad. So that drove a knife in our friendship.

It was just recently that I forgave her; but note this: forgiveness does NOT equal restoration. We aren't best friends anymore, I don't tell her everything anymore.

Just remember, we'll have to forgive people a lot, it's a command, not an option.

"Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, 'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?'

Jesus answered, 'I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.'"

Matthew 18:21-22