Forgiveness— The Power of Prayer

Have you ever been hurt by someone? I think there’s a time in our life when we all have been hurt or betrayed by someone we cared about. That’s not the hard part about these situations. The difficult part is being able to forgive them. Forgiveness is sometimes taken for granted, I know I have. I am sure we have committed faults against someone and we have been forgiven. Just like God forgives us, we should be able to forgive others. I am about to explain to you a way I was able to forgive someone who hurt me with just a simple way of praying. Prayer is the strongest connection we will ever have to the one who forgives all sin.

“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and i will listen to you” -Jeremiah 29:12

When I was betrayed by this person all I felt was anger. I felt incapable of ever forgiving, but I did pray about it. I prayed to God to heal my heart and that he would help me forgive this person. I also prayed to God to change this person and to let them know how much they hurt me (I even thought about praying for them to hurt, but I didn’t).

However, what I didn’t know was that I was just praying for my benefit. One night when the pain kept me from sleeping, I just asked God “What do you need me to do? I just want to be able to forgive them and move on”.

When you ask this question, you should be prepared because sometimes God will give you answers you weren’t expecting or don’t want.

Immediately I got a response. This was wonderful because I clearly heard what I needed to do. The thing is, I didn’t want to do what God was asking me to do. He had asked me to pray for this person, and not pray for them to change but to pray for blessings over their lives. I didn’t want to and I didn’t-At first.

“My prayer is not that you take them out if this world but that you protect them from the evil one” – John 17:15

After re-thinking it, I decided I was going to do it. I needed to trust what God was telling me to do. Trust me, it was incredibly hard to pray for good things for a person who I thought didn’t deserve them. I prayed every single day for them and eventually it became easier. As time went by, it felt right.

I started to realize that as I was praying for that person, The Lord was taking care of my heart.

He was healing it and restoring it. He was taking care of me as I was praying for someone else. That’s the way he works. Sometimes we don’t understand it, but we should always trust Him.

So next time someone hurts you, try this. Pray for them, for their life, health, family, career; and see how God transforms your heart in the process. Through this you allow your heart to forgive.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” – Psalm 51:10