There’s one guaranteed formula for choking off originality inside each of us—unforgiveness. “Never cut what can be untied” (Joseph Joubert). When you have been wronged, a poor memory is your best response. Never carry a grudge: while you’re straining under its weight, the other guy’s out producing. One of the most lasting pleasures you can experience is the feeling that comes over you when you genuinely forgive an adversary . . . whether they know it or not.
Forgive your enemies—nothing will annoy them more. There’s no revenge as sweet as forgiveness. The only people you should try to get even with are those who have helped you.
Henry Ward Beecher once said, “Forgiveness ought to be like a canceled note—torn in two, and burned up, so it never can be shown against one.” Never is God operating in your life as strongly as when you forego revenge and dare to forgive an injury. “He who cannot forgive, destroys the bridge over which he may one day need to pass” (Larry Bielat). Hate, bitterness, and revenge are luxuries you cannot afford.
Forgiveness heals; unforgiveness wounds. Be quick to forgive. People need to be loved the most when they deserve it the least. Jesus urges, “Come to terms quickly with your enemy before it is too late” (Matt. 5:25 TLB). The best healing is quick healing.
You can’t get ahead when you’re trying to get even. Don’t be offended; being offended is a strategy of Satan to get you out of the will of God. When we think about an offense, trouble grows; when we think about God, trouble goes.
When you don’t forgive, you’re ignoring how that impacts your destiny. How much more grievous are the consequences of unforgiveness than the causes of it! Douglas Steere warns, “Hate is a prolonged form of suicide.” There’s nothing more pathetic than a person who has harbored a grudge for many, many years.
It’s true . . . the one who forgives, ends the quarrel. Patting a person on the back is the best way to get a chip off their shoulder. Forgive your enemies—you can’t get back at them any other way! Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the high cost of hatred, and the waste of energy.
There are two marks of a Christian: giving and forgiving. Hate is the most inefficient use you can make of your mind. If you want to be miserable, hate somebody. Hatred does a great deal more damage to the vessel in which it is stored than the object on which it is poured.
Norman Cousins once wrote, “Life is an adventure in forgiveness.” Every person should have a special cemetery lot in which to bury the faults of friends and loved ones. “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you” (anonymous).
Forgive someone every day.