“Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends.”

Proverbs 17:9

So, there’s another word out there that begins with the letter F that holds just as much weight, if not more than that other four-letter F word. I’m talking about “Forgiveness”. I know, it ain’t a sexy word and I probably lost about a quarter of you when I said it. Forgiveness is a powerful word because it’s an actionable word, but more than that, it’s a choice. That’s right I said it, forgiveness doesn’t happen automatically or over a course of time, you actually have to choose to forgive a person. Easier said than done right? Well, let’s discuss how we can make it easier.

When someone or people wrong us, our reflexive emotion is usually anger or hurt. Depending on the depth of the wrong can also determine the depth of our emotion and how long we decide to hold onto it. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel some kind of way when someone offends you or wrongs you. God gave us emotions for a reason, so of course, those emotions are going to be ignited when we experience bad or good things. But after you’ve sat with your feelings for a while, and after an apology has been given, are you still holding that pain, anger, resentment, etc.? See, it’s holding the emotion for too long that puts us on the path to becoming bitter individuals. We become indignant, judgmental, prideful, and even vengeful. That person or group of people hurt us, so now we’re going to lock them up in an invisible prison and never let them out, and many of us, whether we want to admit it or believe it, take pleasure holding people’s trespasses against them.

But what about our trespasses? What about the hurt and anger we caused others either intentionally or unintentionally? Truth be told, we should be chained up in someone’s prison ourselves. No matter how nice, how Christian, how good, how old, or how whatever we are, we have wronged or offended someone at some point in our lives.

And dare I say, some of us have wronged ourselves and are holding ourselves in prison so we can’t do anything, or go anywhere in life.

Read what I’m saying carefully, you have to let her, let him, let them, or let yourself go.