I don’t know if you are like me… but I save countless Instagram reels covering shoulder mobility, recipes, affirming memes, cleaning tips etc. and I rarely, if ever look at them again.
But one has remained in my mind and, curiously, it is at the beginning of an eco-cleaning clip!
It goes something like this. Imagine you have £86,400 in the bank and someone stole £10 from you. Would you be so angry that you would throw away the remaining £86,390 only to take revenge on the person or would you move on and live your life? You’d move on and live. We all have 86,400 seconds in every day. Never let 10 bad seconds from anyone destroy the remaining 86,390.
This has remained with me I think because it is so very strongly linked with a very helpful thought that came to me (I believe from God) just the other week. It has to do with forgiveness. This is it….
Forgiveness involves giving up what is owed to you. Letting go of your sense of justice and moving on to live the rest of your life.
We all know it is best for us and others if we forgive. But sometimes that is just so much easier said than done. We can receive and even purse what we think we are owed. An apology; seeing genuine sorrow for hurting us. Amends even. These are all part and parcel of our justice.. you shouldn’t have done it, you shouldn’t have hurt me, but a genuine apology and the belief that the person is sorry to have hurt us means a lot. A bunch of flowers or some effort to show that the sorrow is real and the desire not to hurt us again is heartfelt; that means a lot.
But what if we don’t get all that? Or what if we do and it still hurts?
This happens and that is why the kind of forgiveness God trades in is that which means laying down what we think we are owed and forgiving anyway.
How? If you believe in God and his son Jesus Christ then you know just how much we have been forgiven ourselves – by a loving God, who doesn’t count anything against us. He has settled all the debts for us and also for those who do wrong to us. We have the power within us to release others from what is owed to us and set them free from any obligation of our self-justice. And so be free.
So back to the insta clip. Someone steals some of your well-being. Don’t throw away your life holding onto grudges and unforgiveness. Forgive them as the Lord forgives you… not only will you get your life back, you’ll get joy and peace in spades.