The Struggle to Forgive

An E-mail sent to friends and member of Ranch Community Fellowship on October 16.

The Struggle to Forgive
By Pastor Ed Wandling

Have you ever struggled with forgiving someone – I mean really forgiving them and not just saying you’ve forgiven them? It’s a common struggle and a major threat to receiving and living the fulfilling and significant life God wants to give us. Who do we forgive? What should we forgive? When do we forgive, and how do we forgive? These are questions with which we all struggle. These questions are among the most important questions we will ever ask. Our answers and our application of those answers in how we live our lives will most certainly be the determining factor in whether or not we live lives of fulfillment or lives of misery.

Jesus taught us to pray that God would forgive us in the same way we forgive others. Those are strong and terrifying words, for those of who have been hurt so deeply that we either won’t or can’t extend forgiveness. And even if we can mentally bring ourselves to forgive, often our emotions don’t seem to get the message. See if the following scenario seems all too familiar.

You’re driving down the highway thinking of nothing in particular. One thought leads to another and all of sudden you notice your heart is beating faster, your breathing is more vigorous, and your grip on the steering wheel is way tighter than it needs to be. You realize your wandering thoughts have found their way to that person or those people who hurt you. In your mind you see yourself saying or doing things to “even the score.” Some of those things are so violent you are surprised and ashamed that you could even think them. When you come out of your trance, well – let’s just say you are not in a positive mental state. Unfortunately you are left with a reservoir of yucky emotions that negatively impact everything and everyone around you. Your ability to enjoy life, at least for the moment, is gone.

Sound familiar? That’s an example of how, even though we have decided with our head to forgive, our hearts don’t always follow. We get drawn into that vortex of darkness where all vitality and zest for life is sucked out of us. It happens before we know it, and it is the guerilla warrior that attacks the heart to rob us of the joy God wants us to have. This enemy of God’s heart in us must be defeated!

Over the next two to three weeks in our both our Sunday 10:30 worship service and our 9:00 discussion, we are going to be talking about how to nurture and sustain a heart of forgiveness. I’ve been looking forward to bringing this teaching as God has used it in the past to help people find freedom and catapult into a whole new level of victorious and fulfilling living. It’s important, so if it’s in your power to make a decision to be with us over the next several Sundays or to be somewhere else, for your sake you need to decide to be with us.