When I was growing up I loved to play on the horizontal monkey bars.  It wasn’t as complex as the monkey domes are today, but it was fun to see how fast you could get across.  I have asked many of my clients to describe the often daunting process of getting across the monkey bars in their lives and everyone has a different answer.  Some have said that you need to have a purpose in getting from one side to the other.  Other responses involves being strong.  A few of my clients have said that you need to have momentum and build up a swinging action to cross to the other side.  Still others have said that you need to go from one bar to the next, taking it one step at a time.  All of these answers are right and are needed to get from one side of a horizontal monkey bar to the other.  But I always tell them, “there is still one key ingredient that is essential to carry out this feat.”  They think and think, and finally give up trying to come up with the answer.  Did you figure it out?  Do you give up?  It’s letting go of the past.  All of the answers above are right and healthy, but if you don’t let go of the past you will never get to the other side.

It’s similar to relationships that we enter seeking to find a significant person to spend the rest of our lives with.  If we don’t let go of our past issues and seek to resolve those things that are considered baggage, we will never experience true happiness in or present relationships or the ones that we are hoping to cultivate.  The principle I am talking about is letting go of the past and the tool for doing that involves forgiveness.

There are three scenarios that I would like to propose in getting rid of the past.  The first involves situations where the person or persons who have wronged you have asked forgiveness. However, we have become so mad, angry, and even bitter that we have been unable to forgive that individual.  I was talking to a friend this morning and he reminded me of a couple in that exact place.  It was 30 years ago when they were young in their relationship and the wife was pregnant with their first baby.  Within a month of her having the baby his work necessitated that he go away for two days within a 6 week period for a task he needed to do.  Both of them talked about the best time to do that and agreed that he should go quickly so that he could be back for the birth.  Unfortunately, he was gone when she gave birth and she never forgave him.  EVERYONE she interacted with from then to this present day has heard the story of her now x-husband not being there for the birth of their first child.  Even with new people she comes in contact with, she will bring up this issue early in the  conversation.  Her husband apologized often for it because he did desperately wanted to be there, but she never forgave him.

In this scenario, it is important to let go of the past, or the past will eat you up.  A principle in Matthew 18 highlights this with the story of a rich man who had a servant who owed him a very large debt and couldn’t pay it back.  The servant was going to be put in prison, but begged for forgiveness and the rich man forgave him of his debt.  He walked away a free man.  This servant has a servant himself who owed him a day’s wages and couldn’t pay it.  His servant begged him to forgive him, but he wouldn’t and threw his servant into prison until he could pay off his debt.  The rich man found out about this atrocity and called in his servant whom he had forgiven.  He said to the man, “I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?”  Because of his lack of forgiveness, the master threw him into prison and made him pay off every penny of his debt.  Then it says, “If you don’t forgive others, God will not forgive you.”

It is a choice we have to say to the person who has wronged us and has asked forgiveness, “I forgive you.”  I assume that everyone reading this Jlog isn’t perfect and has blown it on various occasions.  When we blow it, we surely want others to forgive us.  Can’t we do the same for those who have wronged us and are seeking to be forgiven?

Principle

If we want to have the greatest potential for successful relationships in the future, we need to that we let go of the past and forgive those who have asked for forgiveness.