Them vs. God! FORGIVE ‘EM! PART TWO!

Yall was kinda quiet on part one! I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing but either way – we are gonna continue to part two by picking up right where we left off….

Now I know there are people who will say, “I’ve forgiven but I haven’t forgotten.” We are human and you can’t magically forget how a person has treated you – let’s be real BUT you can work to forgive them every day until the hurt they caused you isn’t all you talk about or see when you see them or hear their name! I’ll give you an example! There was someone who honestly made me want to check them like no one has been checked before BUT I knew that above anything I wanted to be saved! So, one day I was at home organizing my closet and talking to God! I was telling Him about the situation and asking for Him to fix them and give them a mind to be saved! Afterwards I went and sat down and started reading my Bible and turned to Titus 3! I hadn’t planned on reading it – I just opened my Bible! So, I read and I sat there like, “WOW!” When you get time, please read it! Anywho, when I read that, I realized that we all have been through things and been foolish in different ways but grace and mercy is the only thing that helped us out! The thing we have to stop doing is deciding who deserves grace & mercy! We ALL need it! I don’t care what tongues you speak in, what degree you have, what position you hold in or outside the church, no matter if you been saved 5 minutes or 5 decades – WE ARE ALL ONLY SAVED BY GRACE & MERCY! At that moment I realized, God was showing me myself! It wasn’t about them – it was about ME! I’m responsible for me – how I act, respond, etc. That’s the same thing with forgiveness! It’s not about THEM! ITS ABOUT YOU!!!!

See we hold back forgiveness because we are foolish in thinking it gives us some sort of power. Quick to boast! “I don’t let things go!” “I’ll never forget!” “I hold grudges real bad!” “Ain’t nobody running over me!” We honestly think we are doing something and that makes us strong to NOT forgive! Please realize this – forgiving someone for the pain they caused you makes you stronger than you can even imagine! It takes a weak and basic individual to do what everyone else does! Jesus forgave when He was lied on. He forgave without getting an apology in return. He forgave when He knew everything He said and did was right – He forgave some more! He wasn’t weighed down by what people said or did to Him! He didn’t allow it to stop Him from being and giving the most perfect example of love! He continued to be exactly who He was – a forgiving and loving Savior!

Another thing I learned about forgiveness is that when you don’t forgive – and you keep your wall up because you’re so afraid that someone else will do what the last person did – your wall is put up with God as well! Most people will trust until you give them a reason not to; I was always the type of person that I didn’t trust you until you gave me a reason to and unknowingly, that’s how I entered into my relationship with God! I kept praying and reading my Bible and asking God to come in – pleading with Him to fill me and it was just _____________________. (that’s a flatline LOL!) I realize now that I was completely weighed down with years of unforgiveness, dislike, fear, doubt, self-pity, hatred, stubbornness, orneriness, etc. God can’t come into an unclean temple! He ain’t forreal even standing on the welcome mat! I made my first step of confessing I want to be saved and that I believed but in order for me to let God come into my life like He wants to and I desired to, I had to stop punishing God for the faults of man!

Ooooooooooooooooooooooo! Let’s get into that last statement!! “…punishing God for the faults of man!” What we don’t realize is that when we’ve experienced mans flawed, conditional love and it does what it’s almost designed to do – hurt you – we take that thought of “love hurts” into our relationship with God! God’s love is the purest form of love and there is nothing bad about it but when we don’t learn to forgive, we hinder experiencing God’s love because we don’t know how to receive it! Unforgiveness limits us! How upset would you be if you saw a bag and in it was $5000 and you really needed this money! You have bills due and the gas light is on and your fridge is bare; the person holding it has promised to give it to you if you can just reach him but you can never quite reach that person because there is a line of people that have hurt you between the two of you! Every time you look at them – you remember something they said or did and you turn back and decide to not even deal with them – leaving the bag of money sitting there, yours – but unclaimed! Most of you are probably thinking, “nuh uh! I’m getting that money!” but nah you ain’t! That’s what we do – God is standing there with goodness and blessings beyond measure but we cannot reach them or Him really because we refuse to interact and forgive those who have hurt us!

Forgiveness is not only the key to our freedom but also the key to our relationship with God! He forgives us as we forgive others and the cycle can only be stopped by us! I can’t tell you how many people have done something to hurt or upset me since truly giving all of me to God! I’ve started asking God to give me a blind eye and a deaf ear to folks shenanigans! If they are making fun of me, I ask God to make me so oblivious that I laugh with them! I don’t want to focus on being offended or hurt because it leads to a dead, cold end and I don’t want that anymore. The message that I had to learn and that all of these words add up to is this… UNFORGIVENESS DOESN’T HINDER THEM, IT HINDERS YOU! So ask yourself…. are you tired of being blocked??

With Broken Beautifulness,

– Kiesh💕💕