Tag: forgiveness

Categories
Christmas holiday

Merry Christmas!

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.” Charles Dickens

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.”

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol (AmazonClassics Edition) (p. 97). Amazon Classics. Kindle Edition.

It’s Christmas morning! we have made it through the hustle and bustle. Now it is time to settle down with our favorite hot beverage, check out what is under the tree, and wish our loved ones a Merry Christmas!

Ebenezer Scrooge is one of my favorite literary characters. He is a reminder no one is beyond redemption. It is full of reckoning, suspense, and grace. A Christmas Carol reminds me that anyone can have a second chance.

To be honest, I struggle with that once in a while. I am sure we all do. There is someone that hurt us, a person that feels justified in their actions that makes it hard to forgive and welcome them with Christmas cheer. If we’re honest, all of us can think of someone right now.

But on this day, let us have nothing but peace on earth, goodwill to all. Let us honor Christmas in our hearts, and try to keep it all year long. May your day be blessed!

Categories
love motivation

Love and Forgiveness

Yesterday, I wrote about the Fourth Sunday of Advent. This week, it’s about love. Love and forgiveness go hand in hand. Though most of us like the idea of unconditional love, not too many of us are keen on the concept of forgiveness. But the two ideas make the world a much better place.

“Forgiveness is the final form of love.”
Reinhold Niebuhr

Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes. BrainyQuote.com, BrainyMedia Inc, 2021. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/reinhold_niebuhr_121403, accessed December 20, 2021.

We prefer revenge to grace. Most movies follow that plot. Who would watch a movie about forgiveness anyway? They are out there but rarely do they become box office hits. But in the real world, letting someone off the hook is much more practical than revenge.

Business and Politics

You wouldn’t know it by the way business and politics are played these days. We are encouraged to own our enemies instead of doing good toward them. What do you mean show mercy? We are supposed to finish them off! Obliterate them! Off with their heads! Who cares about peace on earth, good will towards men? We have need to give them a taste of their own medicine!

But is that really wise? When will it all end? Is it when the strongest party destroys the other? How has that worked so far? When carried to the extreme, it brings genocide, famine and misery.

There is a better way.

“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.”

Leviticus 19:18 (NIV)

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

The problem with the killer instinct is it has the potential to kill. None of us like a threatening environment. But if we aren’t the ones seeking peace, mercy and good will, who will? Let there be peace on earth, and may we be the ones to bring it. It takes a lot of love and forgiveness.

Categories
motivation

Great Things Through Patience and Forgiveness

The other day, I listened to a poscast on baseball great, Buster Posey. When it comes to sports, I’m a very casual observer. But his story on about great things through patience and forgiveness inspired me.

https://colsoncenter.libsyn.com/posey-retires

To many outside observers, it doesn’t make sense that a man at the height of his baseball career decides it is time to focus on family. He turned down millions of dollars in order to do so. And what is he choosing to do instead?

In his retirement speech, Posey mentioned that last year, he had to learn patience and forgiveness as he spent more time with his family. He and his wife have two sets of twins to care for. I find it admirable that he has chosen to take his role as a father seriously. It will take him much patience and forgiveness to live out his daily role as a father.

Sports and careers will come and go. But our investment in our families will last well after coworkers and fans forget us. It takes patience, forgiveness, and a healthy dose of humility to accept such a role. But Buster Posey appears to be a man that is willingly taking on such a role that will bring on greater things.

Categories
motivation

Clean Slate

The past can feel like a clutter of regrets the wrong choices and burdens. It can be easy to play the what-if game.

  • What if my parents did this instead of that?
  • What if my family was rich?
  • What if I had a different set of friends?
  • What if I made a different decision then?
  • What if I didn’t start that bad habit?

Our life can become a cluttered room of past choices if we hold onto things. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Every new day gives us a clean slate. Instead of holding onto regrets, we can choose to learn from the past, let go of it and move forward.

  • We can choose a better habit today
  • We can be thankful for a lesson learned and make a better choice today
  • We can begin to clean the mental clutter by writing down what happened
  • We can forgive others as well as ourselves

Whatever your story, whatever your past, today is a brand new day. It is a clean slate. Start cleaning and make the best of it.

Categories
motivation

The Powerful Tool of Forgiveness

Cartoon of a man and elephant about forgiving and forgetting

We are imperfect people working with imperfect coworkers and serving imperfect customers. over the course of the day, someone may say something that is either going to frustrate, offend or discourage us. It could be intentional or totally innocent. It may be because we can see the same facts and come to different conclusions. Oh, there are so many chances to forgive!

Forgiveness allows us to move on. True, there must be accountability. If someone is breaking an established rule or a law, they must be held to it. But most of the time, the things that get us tripped up in are minor offenses that require us to let go.

Forgive and it will be much easier for the other person to forgive you. Let go of those minor offenses that can become major if we let them fester. After all, a bunch of imperfect people do imperfect, annoying, aggravating things. And you are certainly not immune from doing an imperfect, annoying aggravating thing.