Forgive Like Your Life Depends On It…It Does

The real issue with choosing not to forgive someone is that it destroys our faith in the Plan of Salvation. To not forgive someone is to believe that our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Happiness does not apply for ALL of His children, that there are certain sins that the Atonement of Jesus Christ can NOT cover, that the power of God is unable to overcome certain injustices. And if we believe that forgiveness isn’t for everyone, then we will become more and more comfortable with excluding more and more people from the reaches of God’s mercy and eventually we will inevitably conclude that forgiveness is possible for no one, not even ourselves. Forgiveness is a necessity for buying into God’s Plan of Salvation. We forgive because we believe that God, with His infinite wisdom and infinite power, will not just make things right but make them better than we dared hope, better than we can possibly imagine. We forgive because when we believe that God can save those who wronged us, then we believe that He can also save us even after all the people we have wronged. We forgive because we act like the Atonement and the Plan of Salvation are already working, even if we can’t see all of the effects just yet.