Forgiveness: Part 2- My journey

       Forgiveness is really, really, hard, and as I discussed in my last post it is an area where many, many, followers of Jesus struggle.  However, Scripture is crystal clear that if we refuse to forgive others, we will not receive God's forgiveness.  It was those passages in Scripture (Matthew 6:14-15, Matthew 18:35, Mark 11:25, and others) that drove me to my need to pursue forgiveness.  In order to respect the privacy of the individual I cannot give details about the specific events that took place that led for my desperate need to seek forgiveness.  Suffice it to say that someone close to me was deeply wounded and violated, because of the actions of another individual who I knew, although not well.  It was years after the incident in which I found out about what happened.  My initial response was one of hatred and rage, truly desiring the death of the individual.  Those feelings never went away, even as time went on.  Granted the feelings of hatred and rage were not as frequent as time went on,  however anytime something happened that brought this individual to mind, hatred and rage, instantly boiled up anew in my mind and heart.
       It was in reading passages of Scripture about the necessity of Jesus followers to forgive others that convicted me and made me realize that I needed to begin to move in the direction of forgiveness.  It was not instantaneous, and at times when I thought I had reached the place of forgiveness, something would happen that made it clear that I had not yet reached forgiveness.  During this time in my life God taught me some incredible truths about what forgiveness is, and how we as Jesus followers can go about forgiving others, even those who have done the unthinkable and hurt you in ways you could have never imagined.  So where do we begin?  By looking at the God of the universe and what our sin must look like in His eyes.  It is only by understanding the Gospel message, that we can understand and move towards the place of true forgiveness!  Part 3 of this series will be looking at the holiness of God, and how our sin looks in the presences of Holy God.