Forgive4achange

Have you ever wondered, "Do My Feelings Protect Me from Further Harm?"

This video deals with feelings and how to understand how they relate to forgiving. It shares how you change your belief in order to forgive. You forgive when you don't feel like it, then use your feelings to see how much you've forgiven. You don't use your feelings to forgive. You use them to determine the depth of your forgiveness. When you completely forgive, there's no more pain. When you don't forgive, the hurt remains. How much pain remains is the degree that you haven't... forgiven. So, forgiveness isn't only a choice of the will to decide. It's also a belief change that gives you different feelings. If you say it's only a choice, it encourages you to fake it, to stuff your emotion, and say, "I've forgiven." In the meantime, you still feel resentful like before. If you don't experience the feeling of forgiveness, the belief change hasn't been made or made entirely.

I encourage you to recommend Forgive 4 A Change to your friends to learn forgiveness tips. You can never tell when they'll need it. It makes the world a better place when we forgive and we can be part of the solution to the pain in this world when we forgive. Thanks so much!

The popular answer to this question is, "You, the offended. You're doing it for yourself." While that's true, that may not always be the first practical answer. To Christians who want to provide solutions to this world's pain, the offended one is NOT the 1st one that must be considered. In the context of forgiveness, life is about sharing God's mercy, compassion, love, community, and accoutability with each other. As you offend, it's against God. It generates a shock wave to... all those around you and sends injury to everyone in your community. On the other hand, as you forgive, you absorb the shock which causes you to cry out to God and transfer it to Him. You're transformed from a shock repeater to a shock absorber and peace sender. It can stop there. However, when you don't forgive, you become a shock repeater, now part of the problem amplifying the issue and encouraging bitterness, hate, and revenge spreading throughout society affecting communities and connecting with other communities. It infests as it goes throughout our cities, counties, states, nations, and the whole world. This is why it's about God and the entire community, not just about you. Forgiveness is primarily to restrain evil in us and in all those around us, to maintain intimacy with God and to preserve the unity and healthy function of society. When you deal with offenses as God prescribes in His Word, it restores agreement between you and God first, and then you and others.

Too many times, we get the idea that forgiving negates responsibility. When you realize forgiveness and protection are separate and mutually exclusive, it helps you forgive. You can learn to forgive and still be protected when you adjust the meanings you've associated with forgiving to include that protection. Releasing your resentment gives you the clarity to take preemptive action, not punishment or revenge. If you're like the rest of us, your sense of well-being has been ...knocked off balance, and you're seeking to get your balance back. You're concerned that if you forgive, everything will be "brushed under the rug," and they'll remain unrepentant and do it again. You can separate letting your pain go through releasing your resentment from being responsible for doing something about it. Separating the two will free you to take responsibility for your own healing without their participation.