The Sweet Harvest of Forgiveness

Yes, you can choose to carry that list. You can choose to punish the other. You can choose for disappointment to become distance, for affection to become dislike, and for a desire for companionship to morph into a search for an escape.

You can taste the sad harvest of relational compromise that so many people live in, or you can plant better seeds and celebrate a much better harvest.

The harvest of forgiveness is the kind of relationship everyone wants.

Forgiveness stimulates appreciation and affection. When we forgive one another daily, we don’t look at one another through the lens of our worst failures and biggest weaknesses.

As we talk honestly, weep and pray, and repent and reconcile, our appreciation for one another grows and our affection deepens.

We quit looking at the other person as the enemy. We stop protecting ourselves from them and begin to work together to build walls of defense against the many threats to a relationship that exist in this fallen world.