Choices can overwhelm. It can also excite or challenge. It is the one action that is presented to you each day. You make the decision to go one way or another. You have the option to think one way or another. Each day you are presented choices. Some have become routine. You have the potential to make change.
The choice to forgive is often dismissed because it is unimportant, shows weakness or is too painful to face. Yet, the mistakes of the past from years ago, from days passed, from yesterday or moments ago always want a day of reckoning. It is wrapped around with guilt, condemnation and loathing. To forgive others is a task. To forgive the person you represent is a choice. You’d rather sentence the ‘you’ to jail where punishment is warranted. Each time the ‘you’ feels pain it is met with a deserving affirmation and an emotional pat on the back. All this is a choice to avoid forgiveness and ensure that there is some type of retribution in place to fit the crime, your mistake.
If it were up to God, He wouldn’t give you a choice. He would point blank tell you, it is necessary to forgive and you have no choice. Oh wait He did say that, but the catch is you still have free will. You have the ability to accept the mandate or dismiss it. Mandate is such a strong word. Again, it’s one of those things you do not like to hear. You want to be the rebel and do you own thing but then you are reminded, if you believe in a God of love, that there must be a good reason why He feels so strongly about this one subject. You get it when it comes to the forgiveness of others but you don’t want to lump the forgiveness of self in the equation.
You often think that to forgive is a choice and it is not. You may want to lump it into the choice bucket and think all is well with the world, but your choice to ignore this mandate will keep you in a miserable state. To forgive is a must, if you want to be free. You view freedom as a gift but it is actually something that comes with a cost and a very high one for that matter. Freedom is earned, is worked for and it requires sacrifices. The forgiveness of self brings freedom, but it will cost you.
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