How Much Unforgiveness Are You Carrying Around?

Nov 26, 2014 4114

The heaviest load that we can carry in this life is the load of unforgiveness. It darkens our days and makes our nights gloomy. It makes our feet to drag and dampens the music of our lives.

But most people don’t know that they are carrying a heavy load of unforgiveness. We roll our unforgiveness into a single heavy bundle and carry it around everywhere with us. That the reason why we complain too much, we are too often grumpy, and we are so tired of everything.

There are three kinds of unforgiveness. We can carry a load of unforgiveness for our sins and mistakes. We can carry a load of unforgiveness towards others, for their sins and mistakes. And we can carry a load of unforgiveness towards ourselves, and we go through life despising who we’ve become.

These three kinds of unforgiveness all really depend on the first. Imagine if we could only know that our own sins have been totally forgiven; then we would have no unforgiveness towards others. And even more – instead of despising ourselves, we would see ourselves as the One who forgave us saw us – as beautiful, noble, and worthy of His love.

John Bunyan long ago wrote about the experience of losing the burden of unforgiveness. In his book Pilgrim’s Progress, the main character, called oddly enough, “Christian,” leaves his home in order to find peace:

Up this way, therefore, did burdened CHRISTIAN run; but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back.

He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a Cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as CHRISTIAN came up to the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble; and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.