I heard Carol Arnott say that her book Grace and Forgiveness is worth a trillion dollars.
Hyperbole, of course, but (Jesus, forgive this crassness!!) if I were to monetize it, learning and practising forgiveness would easily be worth well over £100,000, perhaps £500,000 in a lifetime. No, more!
Speculative, of course, but that’s possibly the monetary value of the immense productivity which would result from keeping one’s mind free of emotional turmoil and the petty resentments and grievances which so distract and drain one.
And imagine the creativity which would result from stepping into the eternal sources of ideas, the energy which would result from not judging other people, not revolving in your mind the sad old tedious tale of sins they have committed against you, but instead focusing on your own life, goals and purposes.
And of course, one would be SO much healthier physically and mentally if one could forgive, and refuse to judge. Some estimate that 60 to 90 percent of illness is psychosomatic, caused by our negative thoughts. Colds, flu, digestive ailments, allergies flaring up, insomnia, exhaustion—most of us have experienced these after emotional upsets; perhaps prolonged emotional strain could lead to more serious conditions.
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Last week, I got so angry with a member of my family that I took to bed at 9 p.m. so that I would not sin with my words, not crush through a strongly worded expression of anger.
But I tossed and turned as I tried to pray in tongues, and pray the Jesus prayer to mitigate my anger and not judge. Some success, much failure!
Well, anger and judgement are not the best way to get to sleep. I was awake much of the night, my muscles stiff and tense, and slept in till 9 a.m. I would normally have slept for 8 hours.
Wow, how much could I have written in the extra 4 hours?
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Forgiveness as a life-style. Letting injuries go as soon as they surface. I simply must learn it.
For anger is spending your energy in negativity. Judgement is spending our passion in negativity.
If we learned to forgive, we could instead invest that energy and passion in our own lives.
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How do we forgive? The absolute best way is the way Jesus commanded.
We bless the person we are angry with. We pray for them. We ask God to give us a love for them (Luke 6:28) for our sake as well as for theirs, for love is a warmer, lovelier, more energizing thing to have in your heart than prickly, cold hatred.
And “Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” (Luke 6:35).
As a child, we will have access to the goodness of God’s household: financial provision, unleashed creativity, protection from our enemies, answered prayer.
We will pray with power for the greatest block to answered prayer will be removed. We will have fulfilled Jesus’ condition for the cleansing of the heart even before we pray, “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them.” (Mark 11:25)
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As Malcolm Gladwell famously noted in Outliers: The Story of Success, it takes 10,000 hours to be a world class expert—in anything.
Prayer takes practice. I pray most effectively (seeing changes in myself, and my life and circumstances) after reading books on prayer and making lists and praying through them. In this respect, the most life-changing books on prayer I’ve read are The Circle Maker and I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes.
Forgiveness too is a learned art. While ultimately, it is a miracle like falling in love, it is also a mental and emotional discipline, which goes through stages, and which we can partly learn from others.
The best books on forgiveness I’ve read are—John and Carol Arnott’s Grace and Forgiveness, and R. T. Kendall’s Total Forgiveness.
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Some things in the spiritual life have disproportionate power; they are the atomic bombs of the spiritual life! Prayer, so quiet, so invisible, makes things happen, in our spirits and in the external world around us. Forgiveness too has disproportionate power.
I have heard Heidi Baker talk about forgiving her daughter’s rapist (an drug addict she had sheltered) and how this forgiveness freed her daughter from nightmares and post-traumatic stress syndrome. If Heidi had not brought herself to do so, she might have continued in ministry, but it would have been a mediocre one, not characterized by miracles and joy as hers is.
For myself, I love it when I come to the point of forgiveness. I love the spiritual power, and the sense of joy and love. And freedom. And best of all, there is a new unleashing of creative power, ideas, stories and blogs!
Read my new memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India (US) or UK.
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Elizabeth Jones says
Hello, Anita.
Thank you so much for such a thoughtful post. Yes, from time to time I have experienced just this freedom and release from the bondage of resentment, fear, anger and bitterness. All from forgiveness. This is not to say that forgiveness is easy/simple/carefree. However, when I honestly, earnestly practice forgiveness, I get freedom and release. (Relief, too!) Because of my work with alcoholics and addicts in recovery, I know forgiveness is a large part of the program of recovery, too. For many reasons–not all earthshaking, or huge, but all profound–I have discovered that forgiveness can be a freedom from bondage of many kinds.
Anita Mathias says
Thanks, Liz. I am in the process of teaching myself this art, or mental habit. Not easy, but I am determined to learn!,
Mollie Lyon says
God is showing me forgiveness is the key to the revival our church needs, I need. I have a lot of forgiving to do. Reading Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldredge and chapter fourteen points out the need to forgive Jesus, not for what He has done or not done, but because of our disappointments, the letting go of the offense we feel, but we cannot admit when surrounded by religious fog. I am working on this theme and it is heavy. Sometimes I want to leave it and go on my way, but the forgiveness keeps coming back, like reading this post.
This morning as the warm gray weather reminds me of Christmas breaks when I was a teenager and my mother taking to bed because she felt she couldn’t create the perfect Christmas, I feel the chains trying to bind me. I try to let go of the Christmas hype, especially this year as I work many hours. No long stretches of days off can throw me into a funk. I’m losing my time for creativity because of pouting that I, too, can’t create that perfect Christmas and really, no one can and no one in my family really expects.
Thank you for this post.
Anita Mathias says
Mollie, there was a haunting idea in the book I mentioned by the Arnott’s “Grace and Forgiveness”. “Judge not that you shall not be judged.” If we judge our parents, we tend to repeat what they did. Forgiveness somehow breaks the cord of connection. We do not have to repeat their sins. We are freer to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, not our parents.