Forgiveness is the fourth principle of success

“Forgiveness is the fourth principle of success”

Jesus: “One of the miracles about forgiving is that you cut away anything from the past that did not work for you. Most people are stuck with the dead and the dying, because they won’t forgive. People hang onto grudges as if they were sacred treasures. The tragedy of a grudge, however, is that it keeps you connected to something that did not work for you, failed you, betrayed you, or let you down. Grudges weigh upon you, and distract you from focusing toward success. Resentments make life into a cluttered disarray that never makes sense. If souls were compared to moving vehicles, a unforgiving soul could be seen as a dump truck with tin cans dragging off the back side. Clatter, clatter, clang, clang!! If you listen, you can hear them coming!

“Such a person is preoccupied with making up his damages in the stock market or other businesses that failed for him. He may be consulting an attorney every few months for one thing or another until accumulations of stress require medical attention. He does not get along with the neighbors because of his argument over their dogs. This is a typical situation for many people. This man's life is so consumed with regret and difficulty, there is no longer a focus toward the future. Then he wonders, ‘Why can I never come up with a good idea anymore? When I was twenty years old I had the world in front of me and more ideas than I could use.’

“It would be easier for a person to move through such difficulties and to forgive the accumulating offenses and disappointments of life if one crucial aspect of forgiveness were better understood—that is the harmony between intelligence and forgiveness. Forgiveness is made complete not by forgetting, but rather by understanding what went wrong and how it happened. Usually things go wrong because an understanding, ability, capacity or readiness for an opportunity was incomplete in the first place. You will not make it right by forgetting, and then doing the same thing again. Besides you cannot fully release your grievances against others until you understand your own participation in them.

“Though I ask you to forgive without ceasing, there is focus and intelligence to that also. The act of forgiving should not be a sacrifice of consciousness in which a person submits passively to repeated abuse. The purpose of forgiveness is to release negative attachments so that true enlightenment may be attained and constructive justice may be applied to a situation. For instance, repeated forgiveness of a destructive child without corrective intercession, would imply consent or permission for him to continue in the same way. The reason to forgive is to restore love, not to continue an unworkable or unconstructive situation. Forgiveness is eminently practical. You will benefit more from forgiving a neighbor who has accidentally blocked your driveway than to forgive an act of terrorism on the other side of the Earth. [The closer an offender is to your life, the more important it is to forgive.] By this same measure of truth, [I hope you realize that the most crucial person to forgive is yourself.] If everyone forgave himself and those close to him, the world would take care of itself!

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~~Excerpt (by permission from the author) from “Love Without End” by Glenda Green

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