A few months ago, someone shared a testimony on the Wednesday night prayer meeting on forgiveness. I thought it was a great testimony and the following morning as I took my morning walk, I didn’t think there was anyone I needed to forgive, but decided to ask God anyway – was there anyone who I needed to forgive?
I was surprised at the thought. God highlighted someone who I needed to offer forgiveness in my heart. To be honest, I didn’t even realize that I had been harboring thoughts that warranted forgiveness.
As I have long recognized that forgiveness is more about me than others, I extended forgiveness to the person and have been able to be at peace with God and myself.
There are some Bible stories that offered forgiveness to others whether they deserved it or not:
Joseph had to forgive his brothers for selling him into slavery. He recognized that it was only God’s grace why he was in the position he was in.
I imagine that when he started seeing things come together after he was taken out of prison, he recognized that had he not been sold into slavery and sent ahead of them, they all would have starved. I imagine after a long day of work, laying his head on the pillow and before falling asleep, he recognized ‘it had to happen this way’ no matter how difficult the prior years had been.
God had been in the midst of it.
Some other stories of Biblical forgiveness:
Jesus explaining to Peter that the metric for forgiveness was not a few times, but it was in fact seventy times seven. That’s a whole lot of forgiveness. And, then in His love, for the three times Peter had denied Him, He asked Peter three questions of whether he loved Him. Peter had been fully forgiven.
Job having to forgive his friends who had come to encourage him and instead, falsely accusing him. God told them that it would be Job offering burnt sacrifices for them, that would be acceptable. Job would have also had to forgive them, in order to do so with a pure heart.
The story of Hosea. God tells a prophet to marry a prostitute. She would betray him multiple times, and he would be tasked with forgiving her multiple times and bringing her back home. This story would serve as a bigger lesson of God’s love to Israel.
Friends, there are so many other stories of forgiveness in the Bible. Is God asking you to forgive someone that has sinned against you? Do you think they deserve your forgiveness? Do you think you deserve God’s forgiveness?
I still remember a few years ago, as I was about to speak. The Elder that was leading the program said, the reason some of our prayers are not being answered is because we are harboring unforgiveness in our hearts. In that moment, someone came to mind that I did not think deserved my forgiveness. I knew in that moment, my job was to forgive. I did, and within two days, the person reached out asking my forgiveness for the wrong that had been done many years prior. Someone I had not even spoken to in years at that point. But, more than anything, God knew it was time for me to let go and let Him work.
Dear Heavenly Father, forgiveness does not come easily to us, but would you prick our hearts for those whom we need to forgive so that we can walk with peace in our hearts. Help us to recognize that you have promised to forgive our trespasses as we forgive the trespasses of others against us.