Happiness Points: #63-68
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #63-68 - Daniel Litton
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[Transcript may not match broadcasted sermon word for word]
Happiness Point #63: You Will Be Misunderstood
When I first started preaching, some seven years ago now, I didn’t have a firm grasp on this happiness point. I thought that whatever I said, people would just naturally get it. I thought that I wouldn’t have to explain or elaborate on anything. The thing is, people have different perspectives in how they approach the same information. One person can hear one thing, and another person can see something totally different from the same thing. That’s just the way it works. We all take our background experiences and apply them to the new information that we receive. Depending on what that background is, what one has been taught, what life experiences, either good or bad, a person has had up to that point will determine how someone processes the information.
In the beginning, I didn’t understand why there were some who thought I was saying something different than I really was, or than I really meant. And I started to realize that no matter how clearly and precisely I try to present something, there may be a person or two who misunderstands. It’s not their fault, and usually it’s not my fault either. It’s just the way the world works. That meant that no long explanation was going to perfectly cover everything that could be misunderstood either. And a person who wants you to be wrong can usually make you out to be wrong, but that’s a whole other topic altogether.
It took me a while, years actually, where I felt comfortable in not being precise and thorough, trying to cover all the bases. It was just wearing me out trying to be perfect in everything I said. So, I gave it up. There was tremendous freedom in that. Once I understood that no matter how perfect I said anything, there would be people who would misunderstand it, and that I didn’t need to try to be perfect anymore, that allowed me to just say what I wanted to say and not worry about the consequences. No matter what I say, there will be a person who doesn’t get it, or someone who disagrees with it. So, in light of that, I might as well just say what I want to say and cast the care on God. I might as well be free in my speech instead of attempting to please everyone.
And, obviously, it’s not just what we say that can be misunderstood. But perhaps even more than what we say, we will be misunderstood at times in our actions. Probably the easiest example of this is the politician. A politician will make choices that seem to many to be incorrect or wrong. The person may be called dumb and stupid, or a traitor or going against something said in the past. What we common folk don’t realize though, is that the politician can see things we cannot see. He or she is around people we are not around. He or she has to balance out the powers that be. We usually don’t understand these things from the sidelines. And so it is with any leader, or with us, as everyday average individuals. We can make decisions, big or small, and our friends may not understand.
Happiness Point #64: Don’t Allow Interruptions
It’s a rather simple truth that our progress slows down and our attention is split when we allow things to interrupt us. This is why when you go to church, or go to the movie theater, or a play, that you silence your smartphone before it starts. This is why you’re doing that. You don’t want to be interrupted in whatever it is your participating in, and you don’t want to be a distraction to those around you who are trying to have a peaceful time. Our smartphones are great. I love smartphones. However, they also put us in an easy to reach place, a place where anyone can try to get our attention at no moments notice. And not just that, but we can be tempted to check our email, social media, or our favorite shopping app for the latest things on sale. It isn’t just others, it’s ourselves also.
One thing I do is that when I am working on writing, for instance, I will not look at or read any text messages that come my way until my writing session is over. “How can you do that?” someone might ask. “I could never do that.” Well, it’s a matter of training your brain so that you are not lured in by the temptation to check. The thing is, our brains tell us that we need to check the message. There is a ‘high’ from checking that message. But we need to learn not to check it. The brain will lie to us and tell us we better check it because someone could need our help. There could be an emergency. But, experientially, I find that that is hardly ever the case. The brain just wants us to worry that might be the case so that we’ll check and get that checking high.
I suppose someone could eliminate the temptation altogether. Perhaps a person would put their phone in airplane mode, or put it in a desk door until the working time is passed. Really, though, I think it is better for one to train oneself to just not give into the temptation if possible. By changing your setting on your phone, or moving it out of sight, one could forget to change it back or forget it altogether. It involves doing more which is probably going to become a burden in and of itself. I think the less steps the better. The point in not looking at notifications as the come to our phones is to optimize our focus. If we read the message, our attention will be split from what we are working on to whatever the person who has texted us is saying. And, we could start up a new conversation that will hurt our current work.
But it’s not just our smartphones that can get us. Working at home also can be an issue for some people. If your family or roommates are around, they can distract you from doing what you need to do. So, perhaps it is best to have a room or an area where one focuses on getting things done. And one could say to themselves, “I will not leave this room until I get done what I need to get done.” It’s all about self-discipline. The Scriptures repeatedly tell us to be self-controlled. All of this is part of having good self-control, of being good stewards with whatever work God has given us to do. We can’t be talking with people and working at the same time. We can’t be tending to family needs and trying to work. There needs to be fine lines in these matters, and only you can establish them.
Happiness Point #65: Take the School Approach
One thing I like to do if I am having trouble getting things done, or really just some days in general, is practice what I call the ‘School Approach.’ What this involves is taking a certain amount of time and devoting it toward a task. This can be 45 or 50 minutes, much like a class back in high school or college. So, what I do sometimes at the beginning of the week is identify how much ‘free’ time I am going to have outside of my regular job to work on certain tasks that I do outside of work, like this radio show. So, let’s say for the sake of example that I know I’ll have one hour everyday during the work-week. So, that would be five time periods, or classes, that I can spend doing certain tasks. So, I could devote two them to my radio show (two 50 minute classes), two to a hobby, and one to my blog. Now I have a schedule for the week I can follow.
The rule is that during that 45 or 50 minute time period, I focus solely on that task with no distractions. No checking anything on the smartphone, and no talking with anyone unless it has to do with completing the task. I don’t grab anything to eat, either. This allows me to have maximum focus and get the most out of it. It allows me to get things done. And I know that once the class is over that afterwards I can then check my phone. If I have two classes scheduled right next to each other, I know that I have the 10 or 15 break to check my phone. During that time between my classes, that’s when I check my phone or step out of my workroom to talk to people. It’s a lot of time. That’s when I grab a snack if that’s what I want to do.
Since I have put this approach into practice, I have found it has done wonders for my productivity. Honestly, it is one of the main reasons behind how I am able to accomplish so much in little time. It’s all about focus. It’s all about working intensely in that short time I have set aside. With some things, it obviously takes more than one class to get it done. And this is obviously true in ongoing projects. The important thing is that I quit at quitting time. This keeps the project fresh, and it prevents overworking on the project so that there is no burnout associated with it. Overworking on something due to momentum may seem like it is helping, but I have found that more often than not it is actually hurting. I get tired of something, and then I might miss something new that comes to me later if I would have stopped at quitting time.
Happiness Point #66: View Forgiveness as a Gift
Being unforgiving toward others simply isn’t worth it. Really, two reasons we can cite right off the bat have to do with our minds. People who are unforgiving are certainly tormented in their minds. They have thoughts labeled under the cloak of ‘righteous indignation,’ where they feel justified in holding anger or resentment toward others because the other person acted so badly. This is a real trap, and I think it is one that is hard to get away from because in some Christian circles righteousness is highly emphasized, in the belief that others should act ‘righteously.’ So, as an event replays over and over in one’s mind, and is never let go, this causes the person to relive the offense over and over again. This causes mental turmoil. And it may even be a whole series of events that are lived over.
Nonetheless, all this being said, we can note that unforgiveness really is hurting us more than it is hurting the person or group of people we are being unforgiving toward. I have no doubt that unforgiveness does hurt the person we are mad at. Our minds are powerful, and all of those unforgiving thoughts float around from us in the spiritual realm. That’s one reason God really can’t fellowship with us when we are unforgiving. That negative energy emitted by us blocks the presence of God in our lives, or in our prayer time. It’s like when Peter talked about the husband’s prayers being blocked when he is mad at his wife. Well, it’s no different in our fellowship with God and unforgivness.
The truth is that no one on the face of the earth deserves our forgiveness. Did you ever think about that? Likewise, no one on the face of the earth should, in reality, have to forgive us. That being said, we know that because of the world we currently live in, offense is going to occur. We know that we each have accumulated a huge deficit in front of God. We have offended God greatly, in many ways. Yet, we know that God has decided to forgive us completely and entirely. So, in view of that, we can follow his example. We, in the same way, can forgive our fellow person and do it as a ‘gift.’ The person doesn’t deserve it, and yet we can choose to bestow our kindness upon him or her just as if we were giving them a present, free of charge. This, I believe, eases the mind.
Happiness Point #67: Happiness Comes from the Inside
A simple, basic, and yet profound truth is that we choose our own happiness on the inside. Yup, that’s the way it really works. I know we’ve heard that before. I know people have told us that, but, before you go off dismissing it again, really consider it. It’s all in how we view things. We can choose to enjoy our jobs, or we can choose to hate them. We can decide we love our spouse no matter what (till death do us part), or we can decide after several years that we no longer like the person—that we are no longer happy with them. We can decide to work toward a forgiving attitude toward others in everything, or can choose to instead harbor our anger and resentment. We can choose happiness, or we can choose unhappiness.
A lot of people believe that happiness comes from your external circumstances. Yes, I do believe that’s what the majority of people think. And yet, not everyone reacts the same way to similar events. A person can be imprisoned in a concentration camp for several years, and decide to live the rest of their life very bitter and unhappy. And, a person can have the same experience and yet decide to forgive and move past it. We must remember that no matter what kind of negative life experience is gone through, there is always someone who has gone through a similar or even worse experience. And that person we are talking about has decided to handle it positively. So, if they could handle it positively, then can’t we? Are they a better human than us, or are they just like us?
In reality, no external ‘thing’ can make us happy. Sure, good things can make us ‘happier,’ but they cannot truly become our foundation of happiness. We can lay a foundation in ‘things,’ and a lot of us do, but those things are subject to change. The clouds pass by. The sun rises and sets. The world goes round and round. Things change. Setting our happiness in externals is like building our house on the sand. Remember that illustration? We don’t want to do that. We want our happiness built on something firm, something that, no matter what happens ‘externally,’ the house still stands. Jesus certainly taught us that the externals are subject to change. It’s what our internals are built upon that matters.
One way we could look at this is to understand that we are all like pillars of light. Imagine with me, for a second, that we all emit light out from us. The difference between us is how much light we emit. Now, let’s imagine that not only do we emit light, but that light can have a positive influence on those whom it is shined upon. In view of that, that would mean that if we aren’t shining any light, we cannot have a positive effect on our environment. If we are shinning at half power, our lives will probably be mediocre. I think this is where a lot of people are. But, if we are shining our lights at a higher power, a higher brightness, then others are affected in the most positive way because of it. The good thing with that is that if we brighten up others, they will feel better, which will cause them to shine at a brighter level, until soon all around us is everyone shining brightly. It benefits us in the end.
Happiness Point #68: Let Go of Bad Things that Happen
Why is it often true that we don’t let go of bad things that happen? Well, I think it’s because in all honesty, it feels good to feel bad. What I mean is that there is definitely a benefit to feeling bad. When we feel we’ve been wronged, we get to play the victim card. We get to think to ourselves, “Oh, poor me. I’ve been victimized and taken advantage of.” A person’s whole being can be built around that idea. The problem with that, though, is that we cannot be moving forward in life if we are still sulking over something bad from the past. Anything we hold onto becomes like a weight tied to our legs that makes it harder and harder to move forward. No, we have to cut the weights off. And sometimes, that requires cutting off a few of the weights at a time.
One thing I think that can help a person overcome holding onto things is the understanding that, in the instance where someone has hurt them, perhaps the other person really didn’t mean to. Perhaps they were just doing what they ‘believed’ was the right course of action at the moment. Later, it turns out, they were wrong. That being the case, we can choose to focus on their initial belief and see that they really weren’t trying to cause us harm. There have been times we thought we were doing right in something and later it turned out to be incorrect in our thinking. So, why can’t we see and understand that other people will probably do this to? I mean, if we’ve done it, couldn’t it be possible that that’s what happened with them?
Here is a hard truth. It’s not that we cannot forgive a person for a wrong, or forget a bad event that has happened, it’s that we are really choosing not to. I mean, let’s take an example. We know that Peter denied Jesus three times at the moment he needed Peter most. If there was any moment in Jesus’ friendship where he needed Peter the most, it was at the moment he got arrested. And why did Peter do this? Was it because he, himself, turned against the Lord? No, it was because he wanted to save himself. He really didn’t want to die, even though he had claimed he did and would. I think Jesus understood that, and in understanding that, that really it wasn’t personal, that Peter just wanted to save himself, he was probably more easily able to forgive Peter for the offense.
And yet, sometimes people really are aiming to be malicious against us. In these cases do we believe that we really cannot forgive them? Or, again, are we choosing rather not to forgive? Well, let’s consider God again. We know that we have done malicious things against God, and that he has completely and entirely forgiven us. So, God has chosen to forgive us. In light of that, then, doesn’t that mean that no matter what anyone does to us, even if it is really bad or malicious, that we can choose to forgive them, just like God? Certainly. But, I think it takes a surrendered state. It takes a person who is surrendered in everything as pertains to this world to truly completely and entirely forgive everyone. I mean, people can take things away from us; they can permanently damage our lives. So, we have to be surrendered in everything about our lives if we are going to forgive them.
- Daniel Litton
Happiness Point #63: You Will Be Misunderstood
When I first started preaching, some seven years ago now, I didn’t have a firm grasp on this happiness point. I thought that whatever I said, people would just naturally get it. I thought that I wouldn’t have to explain or elaborate on anything. The thing is, people have different perspectives in how they approach the same information. One person can hear one thing, and another person can see something totally different from the same thing. That’s just the way it works. We all take our background experiences and apply them to the new information that we receive. Depending on what that background is, what one has been taught, what life experiences, either good or bad, a person has had up to that point will determine how someone processes the information.
In the beginning, I didn’t understand why there were some who thought I was saying something different than I really was, or than I really meant. And I started to realize that no matter how clearly and precisely I try to present something, there may be a person or two who misunderstands. It’s not their fault, and usually it’s not my fault either. It’s just the way the world works. That meant that no long explanation was going to perfectly cover everything that could be misunderstood either. And a person who wants you to be wrong can usually make you out to be wrong, but that’s a whole other topic altogether.
It took me a while, years actually, where I felt comfortable in not being precise and thorough, trying to cover all the bases. It was just wearing me out trying to be perfect in everything I said. So, I gave it up. There was tremendous freedom in that. Once I understood that no matter how perfect I said anything, there would be people who would misunderstand it, and that I didn’t need to try to be perfect anymore, that allowed me to just say what I wanted to say and not worry about the consequences. No matter what I say, there will be a person who doesn’t get it, or someone who disagrees with it. So, in light of that, I might as well just say what I want to say and cast the care on God. I might as well be free in my speech instead of attempting to please everyone.
And, obviously, it’s not just what we say that can be misunderstood. But perhaps even more than what we say, we will be misunderstood at times in our actions. Probably the easiest example of this is the politician. A politician will make choices that seem to many to be incorrect or wrong. The person may be called dumb and stupid, or a traitor or going against something said in the past. What we common folk don’t realize though, is that the politician can see things we cannot see. He or she is around people we are not around. He or she has to balance out the powers that be. We usually don’t understand these things from the sidelines. And so it is with any leader, or with us, as everyday average individuals. We can make decisions, big or small, and our friends may not understand.
Happiness Point #64: Don’t Allow Interruptions
It’s a rather simple truth that our progress slows down and our attention is split when we allow things to interrupt us. This is why when you go to church, or go to the movie theater, or a play, that you silence your smartphone before it starts. This is why you’re doing that. You don’t want to be interrupted in whatever it is your participating in, and you don’t want to be a distraction to those around you who are trying to have a peaceful time. Our smartphones are great. I love smartphones. However, they also put us in an easy to reach place, a place where anyone can try to get our attention at no moments notice. And not just that, but we can be tempted to check our email, social media, or our favorite shopping app for the latest things on sale. It isn’t just others, it’s ourselves also.
One thing I do is that when I am working on writing, for instance, I will not look at or read any text messages that come my way until my writing session is over. “How can you do that?” someone might ask. “I could never do that.” Well, it’s a matter of training your brain so that you are not lured in by the temptation to check. The thing is, our brains tell us that we need to check the message. There is a ‘high’ from checking that message. But we need to learn not to check it. The brain will lie to us and tell us we better check it because someone could need our help. There could be an emergency. But, experientially, I find that that is hardly ever the case. The brain just wants us to worry that might be the case so that we’ll check and get that checking high.
I suppose someone could eliminate the temptation altogether. Perhaps a person would put their phone in airplane mode, or put it in a desk door until the working time is passed. Really, though, I think it is better for one to train oneself to just not give into the temptation if possible. By changing your setting on your phone, or moving it out of sight, one could forget to change it back or forget it altogether. It involves doing more which is probably going to become a burden in and of itself. I think the less steps the better. The point in not looking at notifications as the come to our phones is to optimize our focus. If we read the message, our attention will be split from what we are working on to whatever the person who has texted us is saying. And, we could start up a new conversation that will hurt our current work.
But it’s not just our smartphones that can get us. Working at home also can be an issue for some people. If your family or roommates are around, they can distract you from doing what you need to do. So, perhaps it is best to have a room or an area where one focuses on getting things done. And one could say to themselves, “I will not leave this room until I get done what I need to get done.” It’s all about self-discipline. The Scriptures repeatedly tell us to be self-controlled. All of this is part of having good self-control, of being good stewards with whatever work God has given us to do. We can’t be talking with people and working at the same time. We can’t be tending to family needs and trying to work. There needs to be fine lines in these matters, and only you can establish them.
Happiness Point #65: Take the School Approach
One thing I like to do if I am having trouble getting things done, or really just some days in general, is practice what I call the ‘School Approach.’ What this involves is taking a certain amount of time and devoting it toward a task. This can be 45 or 50 minutes, much like a class back in high school or college. So, what I do sometimes at the beginning of the week is identify how much ‘free’ time I am going to have outside of my regular job to work on certain tasks that I do outside of work, like this radio show. So, let’s say for the sake of example that I know I’ll have one hour everyday during the work-week. So, that would be five time periods, or classes, that I can spend doing certain tasks. So, I could devote two them to my radio show (two 50 minute classes), two to a hobby, and one to my blog. Now I have a schedule for the week I can follow.
The rule is that during that 45 or 50 minute time period, I focus solely on that task with no distractions. No checking anything on the smartphone, and no talking with anyone unless it has to do with completing the task. I don’t grab anything to eat, either. This allows me to have maximum focus and get the most out of it. It allows me to get things done. And I know that once the class is over that afterwards I can then check my phone. If I have two classes scheduled right next to each other, I know that I have the 10 or 15 break to check my phone. During that time between my classes, that’s when I check my phone or step out of my workroom to talk to people. It’s a lot of time. That’s when I grab a snack if that’s what I want to do.
Since I have put this approach into practice, I have found it has done wonders for my productivity. Honestly, it is one of the main reasons behind how I am able to accomplish so much in little time. It’s all about focus. It’s all about working intensely in that short time I have set aside. With some things, it obviously takes more than one class to get it done. And this is obviously true in ongoing projects. The important thing is that I quit at quitting time. This keeps the project fresh, and it prevents overworking on the project so that there is no burnout associated with it. Overworking on something due to momentum may seem like it is helping, but I have found that more often than not it is actually hurting. I get tired of something, and then I might miss something new that comes to me later if I would have stopped at quitting time.
Happiness Point #66: View Forgiveness as a Gift
Being unforgiving toward others simply isn’t worth it. Really, two reasons we can cite right off the bat have to do with our minds. People who are unforgiving are certainly tormented in their minds. They have thoughts labeled under the cloak of ‘righteous indignation,’ where they feel justified in holding anger or resentment toward others because the other person acted so badly. This is a real trap, and I think it is one that is hard to get away from because in some Christian circles righteousness is highly emphasized, in the belief that others should act ‘righteously.’ So, as an event replays over and over in one’s mind, and is never let go, this causes the person to relive the offense over and over again. This causes mental turmoil. And it may even be a whole series of events that are lived over.
Nonetheless, all this being said, we can note that unforgiveness really is hurting us more than it is hurting the person or group of people we are being unforgiving toward. I have no doubt that unforgiveness does hurt the person we are mad at. Our minds are powerful, and all of those unforgiving thoughts float around from us in the spiritual realm. That’s one reason God really can’t fellowship with us when we are unforgiving. That negative energy emitted by us blocks the presence of God in our lives, or in our prayer time. It’s like when Peter talked about the husband’s prayers being blocked when he is mad at his wife. Well, it’s no different in our fellowship with God and unforgivness.
The truth is that no one on the face of the earth deserves our forgiveness. Did you ever think about that? Likewise, no one on the face of the earth should, in reality, have to forgive us. That being said, we know that because of the world we currently live in, offense is going to occur. We know that we each have accumulated a huge deficit in front of God. We have offended God greatly, in many ways. Yet, we know that God has decided to forgive us completely and entirely. So, in view of that, we can follow his example. We, in the same way, can forgive our fellow person and do it as a ‘gift.’ The person doesn’t deserve it, and yet we can choose to bestow our kindness upon him or her just as if we were giving them a present, free of charge. This, I believe, eases the mind.
Happiness Point #67: Happiness Comes from the Inside
A simple, basic, and yet profound truth is that we choose our own happiness on the inside. Yup, that’s the way it really works. I know we’ve heard that before. I know people have told us that, but, before you go off dismissing it again, really consider it. It’s all in how we view things. We can choose to enjoy our jobs, or we can choose to hate them. We can decide we love our spouse no matter what (till death do us part), or we can decide after several years that we no longer like the person—that we are no longer happy with them. We can decide to work toward a forgiving attitude toward others in everything, or can choose to instead harbor our anger and resentment. We can choose happiness, or we can choose unhappiness.
A lot of people believe that happiness comes from your external circumstances. Yes, I do believe that’s what the majority of people think. And yet, not everyone reacts the same way to similar events. A person can be imprisoned in a concentration camp for several years, and decide to live the rest of their life very bitter and unhappy. And, a person can have the same experience and yet decide to forgive and move past it. We must remember that no matter what kind of negative life experience is gone through, there is always someone who has gone through a similar or even worse experience. And that person we are talking about has decided to handle it positively. So, if they could handle it positively, then can’t we? Are they a better human than us, or are they just like us?
In reality, no external ‘thing’ can make us happy. Sure, good things can make us ‘happier,’ but they cannot truly become our foundation of happiness. We can lay a foundation in ‘things,’ and a lot of us do, but those things are subject to change. The clouds pass by. The sun rises and sets. The world goes round and round. Things change. Setting our happiness in externals is like building our house on the sand. Remember that illustration? We don’t want to do that. We want our happiness built on something firm, something that, no matter what happens ‘externally,’ the house still stands. Jesus certainly taught us that the externals are subject to change. It’s what our internals are built upon that matters.
One way we could look at this is to understand that we are all like pillars of light. Imagine with me, for a second, that we all emit light out from us. The difference between us is how much light we emit. Now, let’s imagine that not only do we emit light, but that light can have a positive influence on those whom it is shined upon. In view of that, that would mean that if we aren’t shining any light, we cannot have a positive effect on our environment. If we are shinning at half power, our lives will probably be mediocre. I think this is where a lot of people are. But, if we are shining our lights at a higher power, a higher brightness, then others are affected in the most positive way because of it. The good thing with that is that if we brighten up others, they will feel better, which will cause them to shine at a brighter level, until soon all around us is everyone shining brightly. It benefits us in the end.
Happiness Point #68: Let Go of Bad Things that Happen
Why is it often true that we don’t let go of bad things that happen? Well, I think it’s because in all honesty, it feels good to feel bad. What I mean is that there is definitely a benefit to feeling bad. When we feel we’ve been wronged, we get to play the victim card. We get to think to ourselves, “Oh, poor me. I’ve been victimized and taken advantage of.” A person’s whole being can be built around that idea. The problem with that, though, is that we cannot be moving forward in life if we are still sulking over something bad from the past. Anything we hold onto becomes like a weight tied to our legs that makes it harder and harder to move forward. No, we have to cut the weights off. And sometimes, that requires cutting off a few of the weights at a time.
One thing I think that can help a person overcome holding onto things is the understanding that, in the instance where someone has hurt them, perhaps the other person really didn’t mean to. Perhaps they were just doing what they ‘believed’ was the right course of action at the moment. Later, it turns out, they were wrong. That being the case, we can choose to focus on their initial belief and see that they really weren’t trying to cause us harm. There have been times we thought we were doing right in something and later it turned out to be incorrect in our thinking. So, why can’t we see and understand that other people will probably do this to? I mean, if we’ve done it, couldn’t it be possible that that’s what happened with them?
Here is a hard truth. It’s not that we cannot forgive a person for a wrong, or forget a bad event that has happened, it’s that we are really choosing not to. I mean, let’s take an example. We know that Peter denied Jesus three times at the moment he needed Peter most. If there was any moment in Jesus’ friendship where he needed Peter the most, it was at the moment he got arrested. And why did Peter do this? Was it because he, himself, turned against the Lord? No, it was because he wanted to save himself. He really didn’t want to die, even though he had claimed he did and would. I think Jesus understood that, and in understanding that, that really it wasn’t personal, that Peter just wanted to save himself, he was probably more easily able to forgive Peter for the offense.
And yet, sometimes people really are aiming to be malicious against us. In these cases do we believe that we really cannot forgive them? Or, again, are we choosing rather not to forgive? Well, let’s consider God again. We know that we have done malicious things against God, and that he has completely and entirely forgiven us. So, God has chosen to forgive us. In light of that, then, doesn’t that mean that no matter what anyone does to us, even if it is really bad or malicious, that we can choose to forgive them, just like God? Certainly. But, I think it takes a surrendered state. It takes a person who is surrendered in everything as pertains to this world to truly completely and entirely forgive everyone. I mean, people can take things away from us; they can permanently damage our lives. So, we have to be surrendered in everything about our lives if we are going to forgive them.
- Daniel Litton