Forgiveness is Divine

Forgiveness is Divine

That is a tough word isn't it? Forgiveness. It's even tougher to practice, live out, and accomplish. We sure like forgiveness from God and others, but when it comes to our participation in it, we fall short a lot of times or even refuse it. ....

"A survey from the the Gallup Organization a few years ago found that 94% said it was important to forgive, but 85% said they needed some outside help to be able to forgive. However, not even regular prayer was found to be effective. The Gallup poll revealed that the only thing that was effective was meditative prayer. (source:Wikipedia)"....
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I find that interesting. Most people asked (94%) believe forgiveness is important, but many (85%) realized they couldn't do it on their own. They also found that most people didn't find help in regular praying, but meditative prayer? What is the difference? Good question? I think for a lot of us, we pray for things every day, pretty casual or maybe we take them for granted. We ask God to help us forgive us, or something or somebody, but that's pretty much it.....
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I think of meditative prayer as deep connection with God. Removing distractions, focusing deeply on God whether through fasting, His word, or alone time with Him. I am not sure what your definition or thought is about the difference in regular prayer or meditative prayer, but I think the difference is our attitude, faith, and amount of time spent.....
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I know sometimes I take prayer for granted and just go through the motions and really don't spend the time talking it over with God like I should. I think that is why when it comes to forgiveness we really have a hard time actually forgiving.....
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Prayer has always been about God changing us, not us changing Him. Forgiveness has always been about us, not the person who wronged us. Both take time, discipline, faith, and practice. When we pray we truly need to be open to listening to God and Him changing our heart. When we pray for forgiveness it again is about allowing God to change our heart.....
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People who wrong us may never recognize their wrong. They may not admit it, care about it, or want or ask for our forgiveness. They may not ever say they are sorry. However, our forgiving them is about us. Our removing the hurt, anger, depression, resentment, hatred, bitterness, or whatever it is that their wrong has left us with.....
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If we don't choose to forgive them, we will continue to build up and bury these feelings and emotions that will fester and make us one of the most miserable people on the planet. It will literally ruin our lives if we let it. That is why we have to take our mind off of revenge, justice, retribution, or getting back at them and focus on God. Focus on Him working through us and our pain so that we can see His grace, His mercy, and His forgiveness. ....
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God doesn't expect us to forget, He doesn't even necessarily expect us to re-establish a relationship with the person who wronged us, depends on the case and level of wrong, but again forgiveness is about our ability to let go of the wrong, give it to God, and release ourselves from the pain. God is God. He will payback wrongs, take care of the justice, revenge, and retribution. Our job is to forgive and move on with our lives.....
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It takes time, it takes patience, it takes practice, and it takes spending lots of time with God. It's not easy, I fail at it, I don't always do it right, and sometimes we have to learn the hard way and suffer, until we finally will and can surrender it to God so that we can truly forgive.....
My prayer for you today is you'll learn to forgive others as God has forgiven you. I wish we could all forget our pain or past and especially what was done because of others selfishness, negligence, or evil. Even though we can't or might not totally forget, we can learn to forgive and that will make the not forgetting easier or make us remember less often.

"Forgive as the Lord forgave you."
Colossians 3:13b(NIV)