HOW DOES ONE FORGIVE?

 

We shall always learn to forgive, to seek the heart of God, which is love itself. This will involve doing the difficult part of damage repair and reconciliation. One has to enter into that door which seems uninhabitable to soul search the sense of forgiving and praying to get the ability to make a move on the road less travelled, often with no travel Geo-Map yet you have to soldier on.

 

One has to create a space of experience that is open to the horizon of hope, because the more one is open to that self discovery, s/he encounters God’s tender mercy towards that inner conviction of who He is in one's life, enabling Him to extend that mercy and compassion and above all  more so towards others. (Reid, 2011). The Lord is an active agent in promoting forgiveness, and he uses our acts as vehicles to accomplish his agency (Wade and Worthington, 2005). God is always patient to all you go through all the emotional process you feel like, so as to face your very self, this sometimes escapes our meditation and discernment.

As one considers all these  he  also learns to find the connection between forgiveness and love, for the two cannot be separated from each other. One is called upon to proclaim the good news of the Gospel, which includes the forgiveness of sin as the gospel message teaches one from the Scripture (John 20:23). This can only happen through love. Love cannot be experienced in the fallen world without forgiveness. Love must start with God and be consistent with God’s eternal relational paradigm of love. (Cheon and DiBlasio, 2007).

 

Loving God is a response  has to give to God’s indwelling love, you cant remain indifference to that gesture of warmth of God's loving face. As God initiates love, His children respond as gratitude. The affections, thoughts and will are reoriented in Godward direction, evinced in the command that Paul said “Walk in the ways of love” (Ephesians 5:2) and “be rooted and grounded in love” (Ephesians 3:17) and “bear fruit” in love (Galatians 5:22-23). Jesus himself showed the way when he said “Love one another just as I have loved you” (John 13:34). It’s a source of deep joy to know that God can be trusted (Harvard, 2014).

Lack of forgiveness of self and others can result in guilt and shame. Therefore self-forgiveness and communitarian dimensions of forgiveness, shame and guilt also need to be considered. Forgiveness involves making right relationships. In Hebrew Bible, these aspects were applied to the temple, the family, the courtroom, business dealings, treatment of widows, aliens, orphans, and the poor and the most of all, to relationships with God.
 
In the New Testament, it involves a process of restoration after an act of injustice has taken place. To forgive you must do it individually, recall all moments in your life when you also were forgiven, people had mercy on you and the feeling you went through to receive forgiveness. As many would say, you cannot understand love if you don’t know what hate is. The more you love, the more you will be hurt, but the more you feel hurt the more you ought to change the form of looking at certain things in life.

At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, what are you living for. Everyday you have to wake up, good, everyone seem to be doing the same, but for you what gives you the reason to wake up, you have entered into the world of resignation, living because you have life...that is too cheap way of evaluating yourself? The  world  is  full of doubt, confusion, and leaving your legs on the breaks ruins the clutch plate, you will smell the burning that indicates things are not fine, you just have to relearn your mechanical electrification of you car (life), or you have a free drive through the park and enjoy the breath of air and respiration, so that you fulfil life by looking at everything with new eyes and freely accepting to be surprised by God and counting your blessings every day and seeing what the lord has done in your life. The choice will always be personal.

As Pope Francis teaches that to wise you have to three languages: "Think well, feel well, and do well, to be wise allow yourself to be surprised by God". You ought to respect your dignity as a person, recognizing your personal struggles and refusing to judge. God's mercy reaches out to everyone and you have not justification to hold it for yourself or against your brother or sister.