Forgiveness – An Eternal Choice
Today’s questions are big ones, really big ones, with eternal consequences:
Question One: “How long do you want to be angry or offended? For another month. For five years. Until you finally get an apology? For the rest of your life? How about for eternity?
Question Two: Or do you want to be happy now?
To help us decide this answer, consider the story of my uncle who was a world class grumpy, angry, and lonely old man who died at age 93 from the cancer of unforgiveness. Not even his nurses liked him, and he made it clear to absolutely everyone including God, that he was mad and did not want anyone near him. His favorite words were “Don’t call, don’t write, and don’t send me smoke signals. I’ll call you.”
Now comes the interesting part as we consider God’s response in light of eternity. Some theologians say that God loves us so much that he gives us free choice, and then honors our choices. So, if you freely choose path A in this life, God allows your soul to follow path A for eternity.
Therefore, the person who smiles, forgives and loves others might get 40 or 80 or 100 years of practice on this earth, and as a bonus, they get to eternally smile and love others. Sounds like a heavenly path doesn’t it.
But the person who chooses to be angry, sullen, bitter, or unforgiving in this life – perhaps for 33, 63, or 93 years – gets to continue that same trajectory forever. In this example, we can see that God never sent this person to hell – he just got there on his own, as God honored his repeatedly chosen path. While this path sounds bad for a 93-year-old, imagine being trapped by bitterness and unforgiveness for thousands of years as you travel on the same trajectory farther and farther away from God.
After all, if you were God, wouldn’t you honor someone’s choices? What kind of God would God be if he said, I don’t care if you repeatedly and deliberately chose path A – now that you’re dead, I’m going to stick you on path B even though you adamantly chose to avoid it all your life.
With all this in mind, let’s revisit our first questions…. Do you enjoy or at least get some benefit out of the times when you are unforgiving so you want to hang onto this, or do you want to be happy now and carry this into eternity? If you want to be happy now, we hope you’ll get our book “Why Wait To Be Happy?” so God’s words can touch your life. It’s right here on our website and you can download the PDF or the audio file for free. Why wait to be happy – indeed!
