Forgiveness

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God

I read an interesting article by a missionary about the difficulty of communicating the Gospel to people groups, especially when they don’t have words equivalent to our English words. He went on to tell about the first missionaries to share the Gospel with Eskimos. They couldn’t find a word in the Eskimo language for forgiveness. So they made up a word by putting together a number of Eskimo words. It was the word, issumagijoujunnainermik. 

Broken apart it looks like this: Issu-magi-jou-jun-nai-ner-mik. That was the new word for forgivness and it means, not-being-able-to-think-about-it-anymore. 

What a wonderful word! Christ followers often remember or rehearse their hurts over and over again, rather than relinquishing them to the care of God. And while we know that we can’t forget them, we can release its hold on us by putting them aside. Isn’t that what Paul told the Philippian believers? He said, “...but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead...” [Philippians 3:13]

It’s better that we not replay the hurts that we may have acquired. Rather, replay God’s mercy, His grace, His love for us - and those who have hurt us - when He freely gave His life on behalf of us all. That will help us release the power of those hurts, and enable us to move forward again. 

But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses. Mark 11:26