Forgiveness the next step

I started praying for the man that I believed murdered my Grandmother but I did not do it with much conviction. After a time the prayer, “God, I don’t want this man to go to hell forever” became easier. It was then that I felt God direct me to pray that the man would go to heaven. This is a sense was not any different than what I had been praying for because if he isn’t in hell then the man would be in heaven.

I knew for that to take place God would have to come into his life and make him a new person, but still. Praying that he does not go to hell was one thing, but praying that he went to heaven was another. So I started once again praying without any enthusiasm.

You might have already guessed that after a while the pray became easier. I knew that for him to go to heaven he would have to have a relationship with God and that as I said before would make him not the same person he was.  Now mind you, I knew this but I had not yet prayed that he become a Christian. 

You guessed it, that prayer was next. The problem was God was not content to have me just pray that he becomes a Christian. Oh No! I felt that God wanted me to pray that he becomes a “brother in Christ.”

Now let me tell you this was a long way from grudgingly praying that the man did not spend eternity in torment. 

I looked at it logically. If I was praying that he did not go to hell and that he went to heaven then the only way for that to happen was for him to become a follower of Christ. If he was a follower of Christ then scripture teaches he would be my brother. So logically praying that he did not go to hell was the same as asking God to make him my brother. 

Logic only helps so much.

So I knew what I had to do. I had to pray that God makes him my brother in Christ. 

It was not easy but it was what I needed to do to get to the place where I forgave him for what he did.

The question that remains in the minds of some of you is how does that forgiveness work itself out.

Not like most people have been taught....but that is for my next post. I have written enough for most people to cough on. I do not want to choke you. 

The question you have to ask yourself is, “Am I willing to try and forgive?”

Remember that if you do not forgive, you are giving that other person power in your life. I do not know about you but I do not want a _______(fill in the blank) to have power in my life.

 Photo by Todd Trapani on Unsplash