Inspired by Mary Wisdom

BRAVE, STRONG & HAPPY or THE GIFT YOU GIVE YOURSELFAugust 25, 2024May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptableto you O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.Romans 12:19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room forGod’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says theLord.I recently found a plaque with this saying.The 1st to apologize is the bravest.The 1st to forgive is the strongest.The 1st to forget is the happiest.These words really struck home with me. I think we can all benefit fromfrequent reminders of the importance to both apologize and forgive.

People who have a hard time apologizing frequently have an inflated egowhich gives them a sense of superiority. People who have a hard timeforgiving others, usually have a hard time forgiving themselves. There arethree things that reveal the depth of our relationship with God:The way we love people,the way we accept people andthe way we forgive people.1When we refuse to forgive another person, we put that person, andourselves, in bondage to our unforgiveness.We hear a lot about forgiveness, how God will forgive us if we ask, butwhat does that really mean? WHAT IS FORGIVENESS?

DEFINE FORGIVENESSto cease to feel resentment against (an offender)the act of forgiving somebody; the quality of being willing to forgivesomebodyBiblicalTwo types of forgiveness appear in the Bible: God’s pardon of our sins, andour obligation to pardon others. This subject is so important becauseour eternal destiny depends on it. God promises not to count our sins against us. Requires repentance (turning away from sin) and faith in JesusChrist. Willingness to forgive others is a condition for receivingforgiveness from God. It means pardoning offenses and letting go of resentment. Responding to wrongdoing with mercy rather than vengeance.The opposite of forgiveness is often considered to be resentment orvengeance.

The While forgiveness involves letting go of anger and the desire2for retribution, resentment involves holding onto those negative feelingsand seeking revenge. Seeking revenge could be as obvious as overtlytrying to hurt or destroy someone or as subtle as avoidance of someone, orlittle snide remarks about them.Mental and Emotional Benefits of Forgiveness1. Reduces Stress: Holding onto anger and resentment can increasestress levels. Forgiveness helps to release these negative emotions,leading to a more relaxed state of mind.2. Improves Mental Health: Forgiveness can reduce symptoms ofdepression, anxiety, and other mental health issues.3. Enhances Relationships:

Forgiving someone can improve yourrelationships by fostering trust and understanding.4. Increases Happiness: Letting go of grudges can lead to a morepositive outlook on life and increase overall happiness.Physical Benefits1. Lowers Blood Pressure: Reducing stress through forgiveness canhelp lower blood pressure.2. Improves Heart Health: Forgiveness has been linked to better hearthealth and a lower risk of heart disease.3. Boosts Immune System: A positive mental state can strengthenyour immune system, making you less susceptible to illnesses.34. Reduces Pain: Some studies suggest that forgiveness can lead to areduction in chronic pain.Social Benefits1. Builds Empathy: Forgiving others can help you develop a greatersense of empathy and compassion.2. Promotes Reconciliation: It can pave the way for reconciliation andhealing in relationships.3. Creates a Positive Environment: Forgiveness can contribute to amore positive and supportive social environment.Forgiveness is a powerful tool for personal growth and well-being. Is therea particular situation you’re thinking about where forgiveness might bebeneficial?I think generally people would rather be happy and at peace with thosearound them rather than stressed out, frustrated, angry or dismissive. Yet Ialso know that the people who are stressed out and angry have made achoice to be that way. Probably they don’t realize that’s the choicethey’ve made, but they have. Most people who are stressed out & angrybelieve it is a person or set or circumstances that cause them to have thisnegative anxiety.People do and say things that make us angry. Fact of life. Things happenthat are not fair and make us angry or frustrated. Fact of life. Many times,we have no control situations that make us angry, or stress us out. Fact oflife. We do, however, have control how we react to these negative4situations. Gad gave us free will, but free will is not free. The choiceis ours to hang onto the injustice and all the negative feelings it created, orto determine what we can learn from that situation, or about that personthat wronged us, and move on to more positive things in life.I remember a long time ago, listening to a teenager complain about asituation at school where he felt he was being treated unfairly. Quitehonestly, I don’t remember the specific details of the incident, but decadeslater I do remember how angry this person was for quite a long time..Even after more than a week had passed, his anger was still boiling over.Any attempts I made to talk to him about the situation and diffuse the angerwere met with hostility or rejection, and the comment. “What happenwasn’t right, it wasn’t fair. Don’t I have a right to be angry?”Now I need to let you know that this person had very little knowledge aboutGod’s desire to forgive us and for us to forgive others. He thought that anymention of God was ‘sissy stuff’ that really had no bearing on the real worldwe live in. He had not been brought up going to church; nor had he or hisfamily made lifestyle choices that would be pleasing to God. They weren’treally ‘bad people’.. just good people doing bad things, without thinkingthere were any negative consequences to negative behavior. They wereliving completely in this temporary material world; aware only of thephysical things that were either pleasing or not pleasing. They werepeople who didn’t think God was very important to them. That there wasnothing beyond this life.We have a CHOICE to be angry or not. Hanging on to an unjust situationis only detrimental to ourselves. Nothing good can come from it.5Mark Twain said “ Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel inwhich it is stored than to anything on which it is poured,”“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” ―Martin Luther King Jr.”Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.” -Oscar WildeSCRIPTURE ABOUT FORGIVENESS….Colossians 3:13 “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any ofyou has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”Think back to King David, the sins he committed. In trying to cover themup or hide them he committed more sins. He did not see the need to askGod to forgive him for the terrible things he had purposely done. Godhates sin, so David was punished. When David realized how angry Godwas with him, he was able to truly repent. Only then was he able to riseabove the pain & suffering his actions had caused, and find peace.(Mark 11:26) “If you do not forgive neither can my Father forgive you.Matthew 6:14-15 “For if you forgive other people when they sin againstyou, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgiveothers their sins, your father will not forgive your sins.”This reason alone is good enough reason why we should forgive others,even though we find it to be very difficult thing. When you consider how6much more important God forgiving you is in comparison to the wrongsomeone does you, it should be a no brainer. Without God’s forgivenesswe are doomed to spend eternity in hell. The sin of not forgiving othersplaces a barrier between ourselves and God.The Need for us to forgive others is just as important as the need forGod to forgive us.We don’t forgive people to change them or how they act. We forgivepeople to cleanse ourselves of the pain & suffering their actions havecaused us….I know a lot of people who have a very hard time in forgiving others.What could be ONE reason why we have a hard time forgiving others whohave hurt us? Usually because we have a hard time forgiving ourselves.Remember that what we see in the world around us usually mirrors whatand how we feel about ourselves. People who see more negative thingsin this world than good are frequently stressed because there’s a pieceinside them that is either damaged or missing. Many times these peoplecan’t see the love others have for them because they rejected the love Godwants to pour into them.In order to change that negativity we need to start looking at the worlddifferently. We need to start looking at the people in our lives differently.That can only happen when our relationship with God changes. When weembrace God’s unconditional love for us, we can then start to love people,7accept them (flaws and all), and not judge them for their mistakes. Then,and only then can we truly forgive them. Then, all those negative, badfeelings will no longer be part of who we are. They will be gone. We willbe set free. That should be our goal – to get rid of the feelings that causeus emotional.STORY – There was a person I used to have to work with that knit pickedeverything to death. The meetings we had were very stressful, not just formyself but for others. For the sake of this story, let’s call this woman Sally.Now Sally was a very intelligent, well-educated person with lots of gifts,one of them being a lot of financial resources. She did a lot with theseresources, was generous to the church and others. But these gifts alsogave her a very large ego. She frequently tried to intimidate others to gethet point across, or convince others that her ideas were better than theirs.Well, you get the idea. It seemed like she took pleasure in theseconfrontations with people. I found myself dreading interactions with her,as I would only remember the hurt & anxiety I felt around her. Feelings Ididn’t like to feel. So I started to examine why I felt this way and how Icould change how I felt. Certainly I couldn’t change her or her behavior,but I could change how I felt about her.After lots of prayer, studying scriptures about forgiving others I was finallyable to see her differently. It’s like someone turned the light on. Here wasSally, a God loving generous person who was flawed (just as you & I areflawed). Nothing more, nothing less. It was after this revelation that I wasable to accept her flaws and not have them upset me. I was focusing onthe many gifts she was sharing with others instead of her flaws. I was8able to look at her in a way similar to how God looks at us. He doesn’tfocus on our flaws; he see the good inside each of us.I remembered a quote from Oscar Wilde“Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much”Being human and, flawed I’ll admit that to this day I still take pleasure inremembering this quote.Try ‘killing with kindness’ – that’s something I still take great pleasure in -it gives me a sense of power knowing that people cannot provoke me. Myactions in negative situations remain positive, and hopefully pleasing toGod.Luke 23:24 “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they ae doing.”It still amazes me how powerful this short scripture is. “Father, forgivethem, for they know not what they ae doing.”Why is forgiving so important? Carrying around all that anger & hurt isdamaging us more than we often realize. First and foremost it puts abarrier between God and ourselves.To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God hasforgiven the inexcusable in you.C. S. Lewis9CONCLUSION Holding on to anger and resentment can be a very painfuland potentially harmful process. Author Stephen Hayes writes“Unforgiveness is like being on a giant hook. Next to the hook is theperson who has hurt you. The hook is extremely painful. Everywhere yougo, so does the hook and so does the offender, The only way you can getoff the hook is if you allow the offender off first, The cost of not allowingthe offender off the hook is, perhaps a lifetime of unhappiness. Don’t put awall between you and the love God is offering you.Remember: The 1st to apologize is the bravest, the 1st to forgive is thestrongest, and the 1st to forget is the happiest. AMEN

This is a very good summary