Love to hear from and know who is listening

We hear the term, forgive and forget, but how can we forget? Don’t you wish there was a delete button for your brain? We can choose to forgive the person who has hurt us and not allow the memory to control our lives. So in that sense, we can forgive and forget. It is very hard to do, but it is possible to forgive those you have hurt or wronged you. That being said the one person I have the most difficulty forgiving is myself! On March 8, 1988 my son Jerry Craig was born. He had a rare genetic disorder that caused him to be a bleeder and need frequent transfusions of blood platelets and had suppressed immune system. He lived for 3 months and spent only 1 day out of the hospital. The doctors told me that he would never have a normal life but with medical help he might survive a while longer, but they were unsure how to treat him. My wife and other two daughters were suffering because I was unable to provide for them both physically or emotionally because all my attention was focused on my sick son. So I made the difficult decision and told the hospital staff to treat my son as if he was a healthy infant. He got the care and nutrition that any every child his age would receive and within a week he got sick and passed away. For many years after his death I blamed myself. I could not forgive myself I felt like I had caused his death.

Psalm 103:12 ESV as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

Many people are trapped because they can’t forgive themselves. I don't think that I am alone. For years I felt trapped. Because I could never hear her my son offer me forgiveness, because he was no longer with me I felt trapped and unable to release myself from my guilt. Why can’t you release yourself from your sin? Is it because the weight is too much? Because you know you haven’t changed? Because the ripple effects of your sin can’t be reversed? I have good news! You don’t need to forgive yourself, because you can’t forgive yourself. There is no category of self-forgiveness in the Bible. And what a freeing truth! Your shame and guilt does not depend on your ability to forgive yourself. There are two—and only two—biblical categories of forgiveness: forgiveness of others and God’s forgiveness. Horizontal and vertical. Horizontal forgiveness marks us as Christians. Seeking to forgive of others is not optional. Forgiving one another is not optional.

Colossians 3:12-13 ESV Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

As important as horizontal forgiveness is, the forgiveness of those who have hurt you, even more fundamental is vertical forgiveness, which comes from God alone. After committing the heinous double sin of adultery and murder against Bathsheba and Uriah, David cries out to God.

Psalm 51:4 ESV Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

David realizes that as awful as his sin is horizontally, it’s much worse vertically. He has profoundly offended God by devaluing one life and snuffing out another. But what never hear David struggling with? The process of self-forgiveness. He doesn’t entertain for a second that he must forgive himself. Once he’s sought forgiveness from God, he must release himself from his sin. So forgive and forget your sins because the Almighty God already has!

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