Periodically I flip back through the sermon notes I’ve accumulated in my Filofax organizer and look for ideas to use in these posts. (It would be a good thing if I also looked for ideas to use in my own life, which is sort of what I’m doing but not exactly. As we all need to remind ourselves, listening to good teaching isn’t the same as putting it into effect.)
So I ran across the notes I took on a sermon preached back in June at our church. There are only a few sentences, but they’re very powerful. Here’s what I wrote:
“forgiveness isn’t just a matter of making up your mind. It’s the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. But–we also must choose to forgive, trusting that God will do what we cannot do. It’s often a process, not a one-time event.”
I devoted a whole chapter to the topic of forgiveness in my Intentional Happiness book. I can’t say that I’ve had any significant wrongs (or even insignificant ones) done to me over the course of my life, and yet I do tend to hold grudges and stew. Guess who’s made unhappy by that habit? Me. There is no such thing as a happy but unforgiving person.
What about you? Are you carrying around the weight of unforgiven wrongs? What can you do to free yourself from that burden?