A Path...

***I wrote this on January 22nd and posted to FB... Little did I know how much God was going to use this in my journey. So good! 

So, I was sitting here thinking about forgiveness and how hard it can be to forgive certain grievances.  By now everyone has heard or read that forgiveness isn't for them, it is for you, it removes the control that the person, the situation,  or the pain, has over you. It enables you to walk away and to really move forward out of those terrible moments. We have heard it but letting go is still hard to do.

 Fear of the unknown and just the pain of releasing something you've had inside of you for so long, can make it seem impossible and certainly not seem like it is worth the effort. God says that in regards to the fear:

 "I have not given you a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" IITim 1:7

If it isn't from God,(which fear is not), it will never be fulfilling, healing, or “enough” to make the pain go away. Living in a wall of fear is a torturous and limited existence at best. Don't live in fear of what you can't control. Don't let fear have power in your life, when you have the power within you to remove it.

God has, however, given you the spirits of

POWER= equals the ability. The living God, The Great I am, the Creator of the universe, yet the Lover of your soul resides in you. “And if the Spirit of Him Who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, [then] He Who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also restore to life your mortal (short-lived, perishable) bodies through His Spirit Who dwells in you.”  Romans 8:11 “I can do all things through Christ, Who strengthens me” Phil 4:13

LOVE: A choice, an action to which all emotions will follow once you begin down the path of love. “ No one has greater love [no one has shown stronger affection] than to lay down (give up) his own life for his friends. “ John 15:13

SOUND MIND: Reason, the ability to differentiate between your emotions (pain, hurt, fear, anger, bitterness, etc..) and truth, (what you know).

Now does this mean that our feelings aren’t legitimate? That the hurts aren’t real? That what that person did wasn’t wrong? No! Your feelings are legitimate and what they did to you was not okay. What you are choosing to do though is too save yourself and perhaps your relationship. Not only save it, but allow God’s redemptive power to make it better.

In regards to the pain of letting go, it may hurt for a moment, but it could save your life. Think of a lizard, if a snake grabs a lizard by its tail, what happens? The tail falls off. Now, it probably hurt the lizard, and the lizard will probably have a sore stub for a few days, but the lizard will live to eat another fly, bask in the sun, and scare the daylights out of another human being. I am sure that the lizard would have rather kept his tail intact, but to do so would have meant certain death. The same goes for us, if we don't release the grievance against us, through forgiveness, then we are carrying around death.

 It may come in the form of a current or future relationship that has gone sour because you couldn't see past what happened to see what is or what could be. It may come in the form of a lost job opportunity, because you believed and held onto some awful opinions about yourself that someone you trusted told you. It may come in the form of choosing bad relationships or self- destructive patterns because someone convinced you that you weren’t worthy of or capable of having anything better. It may come in a seed of bitterness that will creep its roots into every area of your heart and life, destroying and hurting every relationship you have as you angrily push everyone away. If you don't release that tail, death, in whatever form, will come and stamp out the life that God desperately wants you to succeed in, be joyous in, and be victorious in.

While all grievances must be truly forgiven in order for the wounds in your heart and soul to be fully healed, not all relationships should be kept. It is important to recognize the difference, and I am in no way advocating that a person stay in a situation that is abusive or controlling, mentally, physically, or emotionally.  However, the next part can be applied to many relationships, work, family, friends, marital, and with your children.

In a relationship, there are people, and where there are people there are disagreements, wrongdoings, and pain. So, in order to have a successful relationship you must be willing to release your tail, as a matter of fact, many tails, so that your relationship can be a SUCCESS!

Today, I was thinking about this and how I can be subconsciously and consciously, (if I am living in my emotions at that moment), thinking about what they are doing wrong, what they need to fix, how they hurt me, how impossible the situation is, or I can CHOOSE, (power and sound mind), to think of the positive. Yes, they did do all of that stuff, but you know what, they sure have brought many smiles to face, many warm feelings of tenderness, many laughs, and they went out of their way to help me with this, and they are trying this, I love when they do this, I am proud of them for accomplishing this, I am so thankful that they were there too..., I am glad that they invited me to this, I appreciate the time they spend with me, etc.. If I choose a relationship, then I should also choose to actively engage in love, and in doing so encourage and strengthen them and “us”.  I choose to release my tail because I don't want my relationships to die simply, because it felt easier to stay angry and hurt.  (Reason)

Philippians 4:8 says:

"For the rest, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honorable and seemly, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there is any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things [fix your minds on them]"

These thought patterns bring life into whatever it is that you are choosing to apply this too. I choose life in my relationships, I choose and my feelings have no choice but to line up with my choice. God's systems are perfect, He designed them to benefit us if we choose to allow them too.