UP IN THE AIR- Personal Journey to forgiveness and inward healing.
When you are on the airplane and look down, everything fades into tiny dots. You seem to have overcome everything.
That change of position from being the man who lives on the ground, often worn down by life troubles is now up in the air, looking down to the earth, gives one an awesome sense of conquering power.
That to me is the picture of a person who has forgiven himself or herself, forgave and forgives others, he or she is no longer earthbound, certainly on a new, all-conquering plane.
Forgiveness is power. When God ask people to forgive, He was offering everyone a wise advice. Forgiveness unleashes your inner power and places you above the petty and vain domination of the self.
Forgiveness starts with self. And that is the most challenging. Why?
You are the everyday reminder to your very self the most failures that cracks up your whole being.
The quilt-torn soul. The one who is bleeding from his or her past mistakes.
You alone know it that you fell flat! A bad fall! The cycles of ugly trends in your past spoilt your lofty personal records! And you feel wrecked for the rest of your life.
Each time your mental clock ticks backward and your past failures flashes through, like a lethal lightning bolt, hits down your joy, self-esteem, and inner confidence. You lose power!
One thing about unforgiveness is that it makes you self-bound and earthly. You will not fly. You become trapped in the energy vacuum.
You can fly no doubt, you desire to, but could not. Not a good place to be.
How would you forgive others when you have not forgiven yourself for the things you did wrong?
Few steps: That you are aware you did some things wrong in the past is a positive sign that your instincts are alive and kicking. 1st step,
Talk to God about the failures as honestly as you can. This is the most important part.
God’s word and the workings of the holy spirit are the most powerful agents in bringing one to see self as
God sees you. This opens another stage, healing of your inner core.
You need your fractured self-image to be healed. Those who have failed are an irritation to themselves, so are they to others.
Failure leaves a bleeding wound on the inside that make such people react to almost everything with anger. Such people see life from the angle of ‘victimisation’ and pain. Self-rejection!
A person who feels he or she has failed turns grumpy and almost begins to curse his or her ‘star’.
The mental jingling of the negative things that happened in the person’ past begins to play out, you hear voices, you feel suicidal. in fact, you hate yourself for everything. You feel a sense of inferiority to almost everyone.
You can become judgemental and withdrawn, selfish and bitter. The effect of those is the loss of spiritual power and mobility. You feel shut out and dark on the inside. It shuts you out from the grace of God’s divine favour and protection. You feel vulnerable and touchy.
At first, pride and fear may not let you own up to the fact you have failed. Mental and logical justifications, even the act of comparing yourself to others could make one not to approach God for help.
But once you open your heart to God, two things happen: God’ first act is to reassure you that He accepts you the way you are. One great thing about God is that He has no interest in your failures, or what you did wrong as much as He has great desire to focus you on the right things.
He speaks to your being with such intense passion and love that begins to undo the weight of fear and bitterness that might be sitting right on your heart.
It is a miracle that an unseen hand could feel over the crust of years and months of wounded pride, deep sores of disappointments, putting together bones of broken joy…and putting new life into dead dreams and personal passions.
You cannot say the moment it happened, but each day as you rediscover God in fellowship and service to His name and to people, a fresh sense of worth and eternal newness springs into your being and your countenance and health and everything takes a new form.
In this state, forgiving others who might have wronged you becomes easy. The demands of Gods’ word to forgive others, which may have been like climbing mount Everest becomes easy with no burden. You feel light, spirited, and vibrant.
‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those’…. Matthew 6: 12…
You are like the man on the airplane, pluming through the whiteness of the cloud. Looking down from a new territory of power, one who has won the battle with self and others and have been lifted to the peak of triumph and glory.
Such a man has power over everything….fully in charge Philippians 2: 9.
Forgiveness opens the prison house and gives you wings to fly !
