Living With Your FamilySample

FORGIVENESS

Remember when you were a little kid, and the biggest thing you had to forgive your sibling for was choosing a restaurant that you didn’t like? Maybe your brother or sister chose Taco Bell when all you really wanted was McDonald’s. If you’re a Taco Bell fan, I’m sorry, but we all know Happy Meals were the thing as a kid. 

Or maybe the biggest thing you had to forgive your parents for was taking your favorite toy away after you threw a tantrum? 

Life seemed hard when we were younger. Little did we know, it would just get harder. 

Now, you’re grown up and there are bigger things to forgive your family for (things much heavier than McDonald’s vs. Taco Bell).

For some of us, we’ve experienced a lot of pain in our families. Some of us have siblings that we don’t get along with and it’s hard to understand how we’re related. For some of us, it just doesn’t seem like our parents ever really “get” us. 

In the midst of these pains, there’s something we have to do to move past them. 

It’s forgive. 

We have to forgive our siblings when they don’t treat us the way they should. We have to forgive our parents when they don’t live up to our expectations. We have to forgive for a lot of things. 

But why? Why is it our responsibility to forgive? They’re the ones who messed up!

Well, do you want to love your family?

Jesus commanded us to love one another as he has loved us, and he said it’s through this love that people will know that we love him. 

But we can’t love when we have yet to forgive. Truly! When was the last time you met someone who was holding something against you yet still loved you? It doesn’t happen!

Here’s what God has done.

As far as the east is from the west (um, that’s super far) is how far God has removed our transgressions from us. A transgression is just a fancy word for “sin”. Aka, when we sin, Jesus moves it so far away from us that he doesn’t even associate it with us anymore!

And that’s what we need to do with our families. No matter how they’ve messed up, we have to move their sin so far away from them, that we don’t even associate it with them anymore.

Then, maybe we can truly love them as Jesus loves them…and as he loves us.

How can you go about forgiving your family today?