Untapped potential

One of the greatest forces known to man is forgiveness.

It’s a force often overlooked, as are the weak and strong forces keeping atoms in their patters, keeping you from dissolving into the ether.

Such power is difficult to bring to bare correctly. But with focus and diligence, humans too can wield this changing force and create ripples in eternity.

Forgiveness is the means to ascension. Those who can forgive can transcend this Earth and re-emerge – not in a matter of physical newness, but be born into a new dimension of reality.

Those with the spirit to forgive are touched by God.

After all, it is God himself who forgives, and our power to do so is a vestige of his image, in which we were made.

Some think about Jesus and feel what happened was a cop out. “I’d have come down and wiped every one out!” Many think this, and so have I on occasion. It is in my warlike manner to think of retribution as a matter of physical violence – the factors of suffering and supplication from a superior source.

But what happened at the physical death of Christ was far more powerful than any legion of angels eradicating humanity. The passing of the Lord was spiritual atom bomb of sorts – not in the dramatic fall of a being of grace, but in the unleashing of forgiveness.

As Christ died – as the weight of the world’s evil was brought to a focused point of physical space, a critical mass was achieved – a chain reaction started as evil touched good, and in an instant, all was made right.

The world was forgiven.

The effects of this are still being realized. And it, like most things that God does, is happening in ways contrary to how we’d do things. “Why doesn’t God just fix everything?” I don’t know. I’m not God.

But maybe, just like when he didn’t come down and kick everyone’s butt when Jesus was dying, there’s a purpose to the temporal order of God’s will.

The Bible says things like “No weapon formed against me will prosper,” and “Nothing can separate me from the love of God.” And it’s true, with the enormous power of forgiveness, nothing can harm me.

“Do not fear man, who can destroy your body; but fear God, who can destroy your body and soul.” This isn’t a threat, but a new perspective on the evils of the world. With God and the realization of this all-encompassing forgiveness, nothing can harm me. The pains of the world will pass and drain off like a summer rain, but this new creation in me – a restored spirit through the forgiveness of God, will remain.

Sadly, many of us do not use our power to forgive – our greatest weapon. We cling to suffering and pain, needlessly wallowing in the mire of the world. Even when made whole through forgiveness, we continue to sit in our sorrow, unwilling to forgive ourselves and others.

God would have us rise above the dirty hollows and moors of the shadows. And it is through forgiveness, an outpouring of love, that we can become free.

Withholding forgiveness is withholding love. Love is the light. When we live in darkness, it is our choosing. Darkness is only the absence of light. Darkness cannot exist in and of itself, but there must be a conscious decision to restrict the light.

Did you know that there is no such thing as cold? There is only the absence of heat. Heat and no heat. There is no cold. It is the same with light and darkness. There is only light and the absence of light. No one opens a door and floods a room with darkness.

Similarly there is God and the absence of God.

We think of things as a continuum. On the one side there is good / light / heat, and on the other side there is evil / darkness / cold. But this is a flawed perspective. There is only good, and while evil exists, it has no power over good other than what is willed by those who have the ability to exercise their God-given goodness.

So forgive, that you may be forgiven, and realize your true potential.

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