"If your prayers are not being answered, search your consciousness and see if there is not someone whom you have yet to forgive. Find out if there is not some old thing about which you are very resentful. Search and see if you are not really holding a grudge (it may be camouflaged in some self-righteous way) against some individual, or some body of people, a nation, a race, a social class, some religious movement of which you disapprove perhaps, a political party, or what-not. If you are doing so, then you have an act of forgiveness to perform, and when this is done, you will probably make your demonstration. If you cannot forgive at present, you will have to wait for your demonstration until you can, and you will have to postpone finishing your recital of the Lord's Prayer too, or involve yourself in the position that you do not desire the forgiveness of God.
Setting others free means setting yourself free, because resentment is really a form of attachment. It is a Cosmic Truth that it takes two to make a prisoner; the prisoner--and a gaoler. There is no such thing as being a prisoner on one's own account. Every prisoner must have a gaoler, and the gaoler is as much a prisoner as his charge. When you hold resentment against anyone, you are bound to that person by a cosmic link, a real, though mental chain. You are tied by a cosmic tie to the thing that you hate. The one person perhaps in the whole world whom you most dislike is the very one to whom you are attaching yourself by a hook that is stronger than steel. Is this what you wish? Is this the condition in which you desire to go on living? Remember, you belong to the thing with which you are linked in thought, and at some time or other, if that tie endures, the object of your resentment will be drawn again into your life, perhaps to work further havoc. Do you think that you can afford this? Of course, no one can afford such a thing; and so the way is clear. You must cut all such ties, by a clear and spiritual act of forgiveness. You must loose him and let him go. By forgiveness you set yourself free; you save your soul. And because the law of love works alike for one and all, you help to save his soul too, making it just so much easier for him to become what he ought to be."
-- p. 173, The Sermon on the Mount
, Emmet Fox
Comment: The key concept learned from this quote: search your consciousness/mental space and eliminate all negative thoughts that hold back your life.
"The reporter stared at him in disbelief. He finally asked, "Rudy, tell me, how'd you do it? How could you possibly forgive that man who hurt you so badly?"
Rudy replied, "I knew if I wanted to move on with my life, I had to let it go. I didn't do it for him. I did it for me. I did it so I could be free."
That's good advice. You need to forgive so you can be free. Forgive so you can be happy. Forgive so you can get out of that bondage. We have to remember, when we forgive we're not doing it just for the other person, we're doing it for our own good. When we hold on to unforgiveness and we live with grudges in our hearts, all we're doing is building walls of separation. We think we're protecting ourselves, but we're not. We are simply shutting other people out of our lives. We become isolated, alone, warped and imprisoned by our own bitterness. Those walls aren't merely keeping people out; those walls are keeping you penned in.
Do you realize that those walls will also prevent God's blessings from pouring into your life? Those walls can stop up the flow of God's favor. The walls of forgiveness will keep your prayers from being answered. They'll keep your dreams from coming to pass. You must tear down the walls.You must forgive the people who hurt you so you can get out of prison. You'll never be free until you do. Let go of hose wrongs they've done to you. Get that bitterness out of your life. That's the only way you're going to truly be free. You will be amazed at what can happen in your life when you release all that poison."
--- p.161, Your Best Life Now
, Joel Osteen
Comment: To see how much you have forgiven a person, you can picture him standing in front of you in your mind. Can you face him and talk to him? Or you don't want to face him at all and feel like or see an invisible wall between you and him?
