Grace to Forgive.

If you find it hard to forgive, ask God for the grace to forgive.

 

Written by Temitope Akinyemi

Years ago, I read a book written by Dr. D.K. Olukoya, I can’t remember the title anymore, though the lessons learned remain to this day. As I opened the book, I read a story about a young man who had a strong passion to see Jesus face to face, he made up his mind to fast and pray for 21 days for such an encounter; the seriousness of the mission, made him leave his house, he went to a deserted area into an isolated uncompleted building to avoid distractions.

On the second day, of his program, he heard a knock on the door, when he opened it, it was his classmate who implicated him during his final year exam while he was at the university. The said classmate had smuggled an answer chip into the exam hall unnoticed, however, when he was almost caught, he threw the paper to the young man and the innocent brother was caught with the chip and was sent out of the examination hall. This caused him an extra year in the university; it was so painful that the brother was filled with so much resentment and bitterness against this classmate of his.

When he saw the face of the classmate at the door, he got so angry and asked what he wanted with him. His classmate who was weeping told him that he had come to seek his forgiveness; the brother slammed the door in anger. As he turned back to continue his prayer he saw this same classmate sitting on the chair where he was praying, still crying. He then told him, ‘you have been praying to see me, face to face, I came but you slammed the door on me’ as he was saying it his face was transforming; just then, the brother discovered that it was actually Jesus who came; the revealed Jesus then disappeared. This young man kept on with his prayer and fast but didn’t have any supernatural encouner till he ended his fasting and prayer program.

Matt 6:14 says ‘for if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you’. ‘Bear with each other if any of you has grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.’ Col 3: 13

Forgiving someone for what they said or did isn’t always easy, honestly, it can be one of the hardest things to do, but it sets free. It’s something you need to do for no one but yourself to be able to freely move on with your life. Bitterness ties you to the past but forgiveness forges you ahead to great possibilities of the future. Paul Boose once said “forgiveness doesn’t change the past, but does enlarge the future”