talking about forgiveness

          "Most people think of forgiveness as spineless passivity, but I began to look at it as tremendous empowerment. My breakthrough came when I realized that nothing took more divine power than forgiveness, and therefore nothing was more powerful than forgiving. You will never use your own volition--the force of your will--more dramatically than when you AGREE with GOD to START forgiving. Forgiveness is not about feeling. It's about WILLING. No Stronger force exists. Forgiveness was the force that kept Jesus Christ, by His own submission, nailed to that cross. He could have taken Himself down in a split second. He could have called upon every archangel in the heavens, armed and ready. Had He said the word, the seas would have swallowed the earth in one gulp. 
          Forgiveness is not passivity, dear one. It is power. It is the ability to withstand the pressing, quaking gates of hell. Take this power and wield it. It's your right as a child of God. In the power of Jesus, first you will it and soon you'll feel it. Start today, confirm it tomorrow. And keep confirming it by faith as the will of God for you in Christ Jesus until you walk in it by sight. You don't have to have a background like me to resist passivity as your response to wrongdoing. You can resist it just as readily when responding to abandonment by a spouse or the betrayal of a friend. 
         The Christian experience teems with so many paradoxes. Among them is the fact that IT TAKES FAR MORE STRENGTH AND PERSONAL FORTITUDE TO FALL ON OUR KNEES AND SUBMIT TO GOD THAN TO STAND AND FIGHT OUR ENDLESS BATTLES FOR SIGNIFICANCE. Don't let anyone make you think that forgiveness is a covenant with weakness. Nothing demands more elbow grease and thrusting your arms forward and giving God the solitary right to vengeance."
(B. Moore, Integrity Publishers, 2007, p. 33-34). 


I hope this encourages you as much as it did me. It's awesome to think that it's not an easy thing to forgive and that you are NOT a weak person if you do. Nothing takes more strength than forgiveness. Releasing forgiveness to someone who has harmed you, is definitely almost always an undeserved gift. But, it is a gift that will just keep giving back so much good to the one who gives it away to others.