Sunday, February 25, 2024
“Forgive Yourself Today!”
Typically, I reserve the Sundays during our Lenten Challenges for topics that are contemplative. Today’s Challenge will make us think, but it ain’t easy. Today, we are challenged to forgive ourselves for a wrong we committed.
I’m hoping that readers only have one or two from which to choose, but I’m guessing that most of us have far more than just a couple of instances that need to be forgiven. Some of these issues may be brand new, while a few of them have haunted us for much longer. At times, these issues stay with us for a lifetime, controlling thoughts, actions, and even dreams.
Today’s Challenge for Lent is to forgive ourselves of one of those wrongs. Don’t try to tackle all of them…one is more than enough. This is difficult because it’s causing us to think about things that are painful for us. These wrongs may have negatively impacted people we dearly love, causing hardships and lasting, painful memories for them.
If we’ve already sought God’s forgiveness, we can be assured that God has forgiven us. Forgiving ourselves, however, seems to be an entirely different matter. We randomly encounter reminders which takes us right back to the moments that a poor decision was made.
The time for the painful reminders has passed. It’s time we let it go, not because it doesn’t still matter, but because God has forgiven us and wants us to be whole. Carrying the guilt around our shoulders denies God the opportunity to heal us, almost as if we don’t want to be healed. That’s not what God wants. That’s not what we need.
Today, let’s forgive ourselves. Let’s seek our forgiveness in prayer and allow God access to both our hearts and minds so that we may encounter the peace and assurance that God wants for us.
It won’t be easy, but if we accomplish anything this Lenten Season, this might be the one that pays the most dividends.
“God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17, NLT)
