How To Forgive Someone
13th October 2012 Letting go and forgiveness. By Manashantii
First of all, please read all my articles on this website about forgiveness.
Self absorption blinds you from being able to empathise. Letting go and forgiveness requires daily effort through prayer until you forgive. The beginning of forgiveness is owning what you feel, whatever the feelings are, then moving towards love and inner peace. The best way to inner peace is letting go off the past, letting go off painful experiences, letting go off negative words spoken against you, letting go off guilt, letting go of jealousy, letting go off pride, letting go off bitterness, letting go off bearing grudges, letting go of judgement, letting go off blame, letting go off hatred, letting go off competition, letting go off comparing others to yourself, letting go off your sorrow, forgive others and forgive yourself.
The best person to compare yourself to, is yourself and your achievements. You must stop viewing yourself negatively and stop judging yourself as not good enough. Underneath anger, there is always some way you’ve been hurt. When you uncover and express the hurt, the pain, and the injustice you feel, then healing can begin. Don’t blame, blaming leads to anger. Face your pain and cry, then be solution focused. Nurture yourself by doing at least two loving things for yourself everyday. Being grown up is being your own parent, so nurture yourself, protect yourself, socially educate yourself, psychologically educate yourself, discipline yourself and manage boundaries assertively, all these are qualities of good parenting and self parenting.
The best way to gain justice and victory from your painful experience is to reclaim your inner peace and focus on your healing. Vengeance can never resolve the hurt you may feel inside. So long as you judge, blame, compete, and emotionally dwell on your past pain ( for too long ) you will not be able to forgive. You can forgive today. Dwelling on your pain too long makes you bitter. Remember that crying is the only emotion that expresses the whole kaleidoscope of emotions. Babies cry because they are deeply emotional and in touch with their emotions. Tears can be an expression of Joy, Pain, Fear, Sadness, Anger, Jealousy, Envy, Shame or Guilt and more.
Your feelings of hurt by someone can ignite the need to blame others and begin a spiral cycle of competing. Some people go to see a psychotherapist in order to get someone to listen to them, validate their feelings, build self-esteem and to be assertive. Psychotherapy encourages blame which is anger, most of the time it is the hurt and pain within us that we are numbing and or avoiding. I am saying we don’t own our feelings enough. We think our way out of feeling our emotions. Your thought process affects your feeling process. What you think guides you to what you feel emotionally. Judge less and love more. Blaming and competing is judging.
Leave it to God to judge. Be humble and ask God for His Grace always. True Peace comes from God. Pray and ask God to give you strength to deal with your pain and to help you to forgive. Also pray against the unforgiving spirit that is causing a barrier and stopping you from forgiving. Finally reflect on the people in the Bible and their struggles and think of Jesus’ s struggle.
Forgiveness requires daily continuous practice until you let go completely. It takes a strong person to own your pain and to own your love, believe me people tend to have a lot of denied emotions of love and pain. Letting go and forgiveness requires not emotionally living in the past.
Pray to God. When you pray bless and wish well the person that you are forgiving. Don’t judge or blame the person, instead blame the spirit that is manipulating your abuser. Pray for peace for your abuser. Isn’t it time to stop punishing the person(s) you blame? True forgiveness is a daily and continuous prayer of the heart. Ask God to help you let go off your pain and anger and also to help you to forgive. Forgive and let go with love. Forgive yourself also. May you feel a deep peace within that only God and forgiveness brings. Amen.
I am writing this as short as possible in hope that you will reflect on what I have written. Please read again and think with your heart over what I have written. I am asking you to feel more and think less. Own your pain and grieve and more importantly own the ocean of love that you have within you. Don’t be afraid to face your pain and remember if you love it will help you to move on and heal. Be brave and trust God to help you heal. Trust yourself. If it doesn’t work try again and again and again. Forgiveness is a daily ritual. Pray to God to give you strength to heal. Amen.
All of above written by Manashantii
Please reflect on Bible quotes as follows:-
Great Peace have those who love your law nothing can make them stumble. Psalm 119 v165
Galatians 5v16-v22 16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever[c] you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
See also all of Galatians 5, 1 Corinthians 12 and all of 1 Corinthians 13
Galatians 5
English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK)
Christ Has Set Us Free
5 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified[a] by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 10 I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view than mine, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. 11 But if I, brothers,[b] still preach[c] circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offence of the cross has been removed. 12 I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!
13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
Walk by the Spirit
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy,[d] drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
1 Corinthians 12
English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK)
Spiritual Gifts
12 Now concerning[a] spiritual gifts,[b] brothers,[c] I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. 3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.
4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
One Body with Many Members
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves[d] or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body”, that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body”, that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If
1 Corinthians 13
English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK)
The Way of Love
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Mark 11v25 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”