The Healing of Forgiveness 03

A hunter was looking for game too near the edge of a dangerous cliff and slipped off the side. His gun and other gear slid off the side of the mountain as he tumbled along behind it.

Launching out over the precipice he reached out, in desperation, and grabbed a tree root that had grown out of the side of the cliff. Hanging on for dear life as his gear clattered below him several hundred feet, he started screaming for help: “Is there anybody up there?” His voice echoed in the emptiness. Again, “is there anybody up there?” This time, a voice came back. “I’m here.” “Who are you?” “I am God.” The man asked after a moment of stunned silence…”Can you help me?” “Yes,” came the Voice. “But first, you have to let go of the root and I’ll catch you.”

The hunter looked below and then back up into the sky where the Voice came from. And then he asked, “Is there anybody ELSE up there?”

Sometimes, in the desperation of our hurt, our anger, our despair… we grab on to a root. Not the root of a tree; a root the Bible calls “the root of bitterness.” And we hang on like our life depends on it.

In reality, our life depends on letting go of it! When we hang on to injuries done to us maybe within the hour or ages ago, we are doing the opposite of the counsel of God’s Word. We must let go and trust God to catch us. Clinging in desperation to our “root” of unforgiveness is never going to save us.

Letting go, in faith, will every time.


FOR MEDITATION: See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up causing trouble and defiling many.    Hebrews 12:15

FOR REFLECTION: “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in us.” — C.S. Lewis

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