Praying For The Person You Need to Forgive

Praying For The Person You Need To Forgive

Beth Moore

For just a moment, envision your heart like a pitcher. When we've been hurt by another person, the habit we still retain from our old nature is to feed the heart-injury with incessant mediation. The water in the pitcher soon becomes cloudy, even contaminated. Praying about the person we need to forgive is the means by which we tip that pitcher heavenward and slowly begin to pour our negative feelings and frustrations out to God. As we pour out, a wonderful thing happens: we make room for God to pour in. Our omniscient God knows that a heart heals when a heart changes. Until we make room for fresh contents that change our hearts, we will never heal from the injury and subsequent feelings of unforgiveness.

After we've practiced pouring our hearts out to God through praying about the person, it's time to additionally begin praying for the person, it's time to additionally begin praying for the person. I already know what you may be thinking because I use to feel the same way. "Why should I pray for a person who has hurt me so badly?" God's ways are not our ways. He created our psyches, and He alone knows how they operate. He created our hearts so uniquely, so in His image, that they are forced to give in order to be free. God greatly honors our willingness to bless others when our human reaction would be to curse them. First Peter 3:9 says to all: "Do not repay evil with evil or insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called, so that you may inherit a blessing." Don't miss the phrase "to this you were called." I've heard many people say, "God could never expect me to forgive or pray for blessing for that person after all she/he has done." Oh, yes, He could. In fact, to this we were called! The invitation to bless when the rest of the world would curse is one of the very characteristics that sets us apart and causes people to take note of our faith. What have we gained if we do it our way? An ulcer? A bad heart? Unending depression? Such bitterness that no one wants to be around us? God knows what He's doing. He created the rules of the heart. When we choose to go against everything our own humanity would tell us and, instead, approach our struggle God's way, we are shocked once again to see that He was right.

Praying God's Word -Breaking Free from Spiritual Strongholds by Beth Moore, page 240-241, Broadman & Holdman Publishers ISBN #080542351-6