"Forgiveness is not just a good idea, it is a God-idea"
The process of forgiveness should not be discussed but practiced. I read a story in the Bible about a young man named JOSEPH. He was the beloved of his father among 12 children. This generated gross-hatred in the hearts of majority of his siblings, as a result, they conspired and sold him to slave merchants, informing their father that a wild beast had devoured him.
Joseph found himself in a strange land called Egypt where the mercies of God orchestrated events which resulted in his becoming the Prime Minister of that land. About 13 years after, famine struck the world over. Egypt was the only place where the famine was not suffered.
People came from all over the world to Egypt to buy corn. The brothers of Joseph were not left out. Need for survival brought their dramatic re-union. Joseph was served the opportunity to get even with his siblings and he actually did... He got even in the cruellest fashion, HE FORGAVE THEM!
The art of forgiveness demands two important constituents to be taken care of.
NUMBER ONE: "What happened?" In other words, what action wronged us? Let us call it TRANSGRESSIONS.
NUMBER TWO: The decision we made to feel wronged by the transgression, which prompts us to say things like "What he did to me was very bad". Let us call it JUDGMENT.
Marrying the two points, we deduced that if there weren't a judgment, there would be no perception of transgression. Joseph, the man in my story judged his brothers transgression correctly and this was responsible for his aptness to forgive them. "You thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good" (Genesis chapter 50 verse 20).
