LifeLink Devotions for Friday, February 23, 2024

I remember a big news story from several years back about a missing teen who had been found after four years. He had been abducted from his community by a man who lived within an hour of the boy’s home. This man lived without suspicion with this boy as his own for the entire time. What a reunion it must have been when the boy and his parents were reunited. Of course, the United States judicial system will determine the guilt and punishment of the man who did this, but the real issue that must be addressed by the parents and the boy is this – how do we forgive this man so we can move on with our lives?

It is important for us to forgive people who have wronged us. But how do we forgive when the crime against us has been so brutal?  We must not be deceived into thinking that somehow we will feel better if we stay angry. No matter how severe the sin that was committed, the long term effects of unforgiveness are worse. Bitterness and resentment are the thorns that will grow in the soil of an unforgiving heart, and when they do they quickly choke out any harvest of the fruit of the Spirit that you could experience.

One of my favorite Bible characters, Joseph, had to make such a choice. You can read his story of forgiveness in Genesis 50, verses 15-21. I will wait while you do that.

Put yourself in Joseph’s place for a moment. Imagine that years ago several family members had conspired to kill you because of jealousy. Instead, they decided to ship you off to a foreign land as a slave. They then informed your parents that you were dead. Time for your first choice: rebel against your new master and attempt to rectify the situation or surrender to your plight and do your best to succeed for your master because you trust God with the outcome of your life. Joseph chose the latter. And he kept choosing to trust God with the outcome of his life through continuing difficulties. He was thrown in prison after being falsely accused of adultery. He was lied to by two prison friends who were to help him get released and they did not. Then, when he was finally in a position of leadership and had the power and authority to bring justice to those who had hurt him, he forgave them and gave them the best that he had. He could have had them all killed, or made slaves as he had been, but instead he chose to trust God. In one of the greatest statements of faith in the entire Bible Joseph says, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done.” 

What would your choice have been? I suspect that for many of us we would have docked the ship of resentment in the harbor of our heart waiting for the day we could sail it on the sea of revenge. Maybe you have one or more ships like that already tied up. I heard an interesting statement the other day on a radio program that involved finances. It was this – “Don’t sit and wait for your ship to come in if you haven’t sent any out.” That principle applies here. Don’t wait for the ship of God’s blessing to come into your heart until you have sent out the ships of bitterness and resentment. God’s blessings cannot sail on the waters of unforgiveness. Where there is resentment there can be no hope. Where there is bitterness there can be no joy.  Where there is unforgiveness there can be no peace.

Think carefully and prayerfully – who do you need to forgive? Who do you need to call today and reassure them and speak kindly to them as Joseph did to his brothers? No matter what they did to you, the pain you are enduring because you have not forgiven them is greater than the pain of the sin that was committed. Untie those ships and send them out to the sea of forgiveness where they will be sunk in the grace of God and buried forever. Then open up the port of your heart because God is going to pour out a blessing on you – the blessing of restored relationships, just like the one you now have with Him.

Pastor John