A King gets a poor guy, let's call him Tom, that owes him 100,000 dollars. Of course that's a lot of cash, so he wants Tom, his family and all his goods to be auctioned off. Tom begs to be given time to pay back. But the King does something much bigger than that. He forgives Tom of all the debt and erases it, as if he never owed the King anything.
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| Please forgive me... |
Oh, so Tom goes on with life (because it does go on...) and he meets his friend, Tim, who owes him 10 dollars. That's a lot of money right, according to Tom it could help pay back what he owes the king.
The thing is Tom has never believed that the King erased his debt. His plea was that he be given time to pay back. Tom has been going on with life trying to pay back.
Tom gets Tim by the throat and asks that he pays up...Same script, Tim is so poor he can't. He begs to be given time. But this time, Tom wouldn't do that. Tim is thrown in jail until he pays up.
Word gets to the King. Tom did the unthinkable. The king says to Tom, "I erase $100,000 debt and you don't have mercy on Tim for $10 dollars." Of course, the King puts Tom in jail to be tortured until he pays up.
Whose debt do you have to pay back? Whose debt have you not forgiven today? Who have you thrown to jail because of the $10 dollars until they pay up?
Do you expect the one who you owe the $100,000 to forgive you still and you are holding the $10 guy at their throat to pay up?
The lesson is, God erased all your debt. You owe Him nothing. God was merciful to you. But you go around putting all the people who owe you in jail until they pay up. Just like Tom, you'll be tortured until you pay back $100,000 which you can't pay back for.
The torture could mean the pain, the hurt, the load you carry because of not forgiving. Don't peg your forgiveness on people paying back the debt, God didn't and He expects you to do the same. Leave God to work on the people in your life all you have to do is love yourself enough to forgive.
Love yourself enough to forgive : "Unforgiveness is like taking poison but expecting someone else to die."
Matthew 18 34 Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.
35 “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”
On a lighter note, my hubby is called Tommy (tom) and one of his best friends is called tim..lol.
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, it's amazing the kind of standards we expect others to keep, but keep none for ourselves, right? The same way we have been forgiven much (thus have no burden) but won't let go of slights done to us.
Ngina, I hope both Tommy and Tim get to read this story, might come in handy, don't you agree.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing yes I agree and sad also. The toughest lesson to learn is you will still undergo torture - emotionally - if you don't forgive. Most of the time the people that might have hurt us most are our immediate family members.
We learn to resent and could even hate them, but then we carry all that hurt to other relationships with other people. Until we decide to give them what we have freely received, and forgive them, the cycle continues.
Thanks for sharing Ngina, be blessed!