I Kind Of Forgive You

Have you ever forgiven someone of something they did and then years later realized you were still holding a grudge about it? If you haven't, you're Jesus. When you get around that person, you say you've forgiven them, but as soon they turn around, you start gossiping about them faster than you can even think about the fact that you are gossiping about them. If you haven't realized it, you haven't really forgiven them.

As a Christian, I always talk about how forgiveness is a part of who I should be, but actually forgiving someone and not blasting their wrong doing to every friend that I have is honestly one of the hardest things to do. When someone hurts me, I want to rant about it. I want to go up to the first person I know and say, "*insert persons name* did this to me. I hate them. They're horrible. May the Lord reap coals of fire upon their head!" Cause you know, God really pays attention to petty drama. He probably does his holy eye roll in hopes we'll feel it and just shut our mouths. Then, we start making excuses. "But you just don't understand! What they did is unforgivable!" "I'm too hurt by them to forgive.'" or my favorite "The Lord sent them to tempt me." Honey, if the Lord sent them to tempt you, you're failing. Honestly, we're all failing.

Have you not done something to someone that they might see as unforgivable? How did it feel when you thought they forgave you and turns out that they have been gossiping about you to everybody? As Matthew 7:3 states, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

I feel like we fail to realize that what they did to Jesus was worse than what anyone of us has gone through. His friends betrayed him. Guards beat him and mutilated him to the point to where people couldn't recognize him. After his back was ripped open, he had to carry a cross made of wood for miles just to be nailed to it. To top it all off, he did all this while a nation was screaming in his face about how horrible he was when he did absolutely nothing wrong. Yet as he hung on the cross, he uttered the words, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." If we have been forgiven for all of our transgressions that put Jesus on the cross, who are we not to forgive the person the doesn't agree with our opinions?