I want to talk to you today about the incredible importance of forgiveness in our lives. Without it, we’ll never make it in this world or the next. Doctors now know that we don’t get ulcers as much from what we eat; we get them from what’s eating us. If you want to have a miserable existence and risk contracting one or more diseases, then hold resentment and unforgiveness in your heart. They can destroy the body.
Would you prefer to cultivate a forgiving heart? Then learn from Joseph’s example. He had much to forgive . . .
Joseph could well have said he had much to set right, but he never did. Instead he freely forgave them all.
Abraham Lincoln is also a wonderful example of forgiveness. He regularly forgave his enemies. On the very afternoon before he was shot, Lincoln gave instructions to his cabinet, many members of which were bent on stepping on the face of the South now that the Civil War had ended. Lincoln told his cabinet, “There will be no reparations.” He had a heart as big as the whole world and yet not big enough to hold a grudge.
Do you have an enemy whom you have not forgiven from your heart? Then ask God for the grace to forgive; after all, Jesus has forgiven us for so much more—who are we to hold grudges?