Whether your forgiveness of another is unilateral on your part or instigated through the other person seeking your forgiveness, the statement is only the first step in the forgiveness process. Forgiving is a process. Forgiveness is always a choice. However, the benefits far outweigh any negatives. And whether or not you realize it – forgiveness is always about you.
Forgiveness is an action. But I don’t believe it’s a one step action. While the first step is always a choice by you to forgive, the next step is to walk in forgiveness and that’s considerably more difficult. The difficulty lies in the reality that we rarely forget. We remember what happened, how we felt.
Walking in forgiveness is a conscious act and decision to not hold whatever happened against the person who ‘wronged’ you (wronged, at least from your perspective – I am not going to address whether or not your perception is right, if you feel wronged then it occurred in your world). Even though you have initiated the behavior to forgive, this step requires strength of character. It is never automatic and more often than not, not easy.
Walking in forgiveness occurs every time we meet the person who ‘wronged’ us. And if we happen to be in their presence often, it doesn’t get easier with the number of times this happens. Quite honestly, it’s considerably easier when we rarely see the offending person. But even in this case, it doesn’t change the need for Step 3. But to move to Step 3, we have to operate in Step 2 first – and it does need to become a habit.
Walking in forgiveness includes: not imparting an unspoken lack of forgiveness regardless of your previous words. Body language is important and you can’t imply, subtly, that the other person is anathema to you. You can’t give credence to gossip about them through listening to it or simply not replying to the words. You have to give everyone the impression that you have moved beyond what happened.
Walking in forgiveness is also a choice. But part of the reason to do this lies in our relationship with the Father. How can we expect, ask for forgiveness from Him if we don’t forgive those who wrong us? We can’t. Scripture clearly states that before we can ask for forgiveness from what we did or didn’t do, we must first forgive our brother. And forgiveness is always more than just words.
