May
19, 2014
Pastorgraphs: “As We Forgive Our Debtors”
No doubt
you have recited The Lord’s Prayer many times. If you are like me, you pause a
bit when you get to that part about “forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors”. I was hoping to find a loophole, but then Jesus added, “So also My
heavenly Father will deal with every one of you if you do not freely forgive your brother from your heart his offenses.” (Mt. 18:35) And don’t
forget, Jesus cried from the cross, “Father, forgive them”.
Forgiveness
is easier said than done. Yet it is absolutely critical for your physical,
mental and spiritual well-being. Now there is a scientific study to prove it.
Researchers at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland show that you are
better able to forget the details of a transgression when you forgive that
transgression.
"It is
well established that learning to forgive others can have positive benefits for
an individual's physical and mental health," says Saima Noreen, who
conducted the study. "The ability to forget upsetting memories may provide
an effective coping strategy that enables people to move on with their
lives." Overcoming strong negative emotions toward the person who “did us
wrong” and quashing impulses for vengeance enables us to forget the details of
that wrong.
The study
involved participants reading 40 scenarios that contained hypothetical
wrongdoings, including infidelity, slander, and theft. They were asked to
evaluate the transgression and say whether, as the victim, they would forgive
the misdeed.
A week or
so later, they read the scenarios again. For transgressions they had forgiven
in the first session, participants showed more forgetting the details of the
wrongdoing. By contrast, participants showed no forgetting for scenarios they
had not forgiven, even when they had been told to forget them.
So, while
it is true forgiveness may be difficult to accomplish, the findings suggest
that once the transgression has been forgiven, forgetting becomes easier as a
result.
Over almost
a half century in ministry, I have come across individuals who actually nurse
long-held grudges. Invariably, those who do not forgive cannot forget, and
actually hurt themselves more than the person who committed the wrong.
A comedian
once said, “Forgive your enemies. It will drive them nuts!” There is always an
element of truth in humor, and he may have hit upon something: The best way to
get even is to forgive and forget. Forgiving might be the sweetest revenge of
all.
Robert
Brault once said, “If you can’t forgive and forget, pick one.” And Mahatma Gandhi
taught us, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the
strong.”
If you
think you have buried the hatchet, but you remember exactly where you buried
it, you have neither forgiven nor forgotten!
So, let it
go, sisters and brothers. Let it go!
Devotedly
yours, Bill Jenkins
From the
Quote Garden:
“I can forgive, but I cannot forget,
is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like
a cancelled note — torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown
against one.”
~ Henry Ward Beecher ~
Christ United Methodist Ministry
Center
“Christ
in the Heart of San Diego”
3295
Meade Avenue - San Diego, CA 92116 - (619) 284-9205
Home of
Exodus
Parish
No comments:
Post a Comment