Latest / Prayer Before Work / Still Counting How Many Times They Wronged You? - Prayer Before Work
Transcript
- Sean Graver: So you've done the math on this more times than you'd like to admit. What they did to you, how long ago it happened, whether enough time has passed that you're allowed to still be mad about it. Well, hey, this is Sean, and welcome back to Prayer Before Work. You know, maybe it's the coworker who took credit for your idea in a meeting and never said a word about it. Maybe it's the one who threw you under the bus to save their own reputation. You've forgiven it, sort of. In the sense that you're not like actively plotting anything, but it comes back. You see them in the break room, and it flares right back up like it happened yesterday. You know, Peter asked Jesus a version of this exact question in Matthew 18. He asks, How many times he's required to forgive someone? And he offers seven as a generous number, figuring that's more than enough. And Jesus answers. I do not say to you seven times, but seventy seven times. Now he's not handing Peter a new number to count to. He's telling him to stop counting. The moment you're tracking a number, you've already missed the point. Forgiveness that's still doing math isn't finished yet. So here's what's worth remembering about that co-worker you can't quite let go of. Forgiving them doesn't mean That what they did was fine, and it doesn't require you to trust them with the same thing again. It just means you stop punishing yourself in your head for something that already happened. The exhausting part of unforgiveness is that it keeps the offense alive inside you long after the other person has moved on and forgotten all about it. You're the one still carrying it with you every day. So today, If their name still gets a reaction out of you, that's worth being honest with God about. I mean, not pretending that it didn't happen and not not rushing past the anger, but just bringing the real version of how you feel and asking to be free of it. Let's pray over that. So God, there's something we haven't fully let go of and we're tired of them taking up space in our head. Help us stop doing math on this and actually release it. We're not asking you to make what they did okay, but we're asking you to free us from carrying it. We forgive what they did because you showed us how when you forgave us. And we also pray a blessing over them in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, I know that last part might have been hard. But you can do it. Now go make today count.