Heads Or Tails? They Are Both Important.

7 Oct

“There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.”
~ Bryant H. McGill

“Heads, I win. Tails, I lose.”  For as long as I can remember, tossing a coin to determine an outcome has been a popular method.  It is used to help people make choices.  It is used to determine which team kicks off. It is used to choose when the right answer seems murky.  However, in most all of the cases in which a coin is tossed, there is a clear winner and a clear loser.  Someone is going to be happy with the way the coin landed and someone is going to be unhappy.

Bryant McGill speaks about a different “coin” if you will, being tossed in the air.  If you continue this analogy, we might speak about a “God coin”.  Only, in tossing the coin, there is no winner and no loser because both sides of the coin are important.  Indeed, both sides of the coin are necessary.

If we are going to bring God into our world, we have to use both love and forgiveness for they are two sides of the same coin and must be utilized together.  We cannot forgive if we do not love and we cannot love if we do not forgive.  It is impossible.  Love demands forgiveness and forgiveness requires love.

One of the most difficult things to do as human beings is to forgive someone who has wronged us or hurt us.  It does not seem to be in our nature to do so.  Yet, if we do not forgive, the wound in our soul festers and we become sour, unforgiving, and unloving.  If we allow that to happen, we also become unforgivable and unlovable.  Forgiveness and love are requirements if we are to be forgivable and lovable.

“There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.”  However, if we both love and forgive, we can make this world, at least our part of it, more into the Kingdom of God for God is perfect love and perfect forgiveness.

If you find it hard to love or to forgive, reflect upon Jesus’ life and example.  He most certainly had reason not to forgive, at least if we judge by our human standards.  However, He was and is the perfect model of forgiveness because of His great love for us.

If we utilize the God coin, we will always come out winners because we will be people who both love and forgive.

FAITH ACTION:  Ask God to give you the grace and love that you need to forgive those who have hurt you in the past.