Jeff Cavins
Jeff Cavins opens our eyes to the exact price we all pay for practicing “Unforgiveness.” The I’ll make the other pay attitude we often assume costs us in the near and long term. He offers the opinion that most of “our” problems stem from unforgiveness. There is tribulation or trouble in all our lives. He further opines that our chief problem is that of being offended (the condition of being hurt or resentful).
He acknowledges that there is certain risk in life that others will hurt us. Offense separates us from Christ. Reaction to offense erects walls between ourselves and the offender. Taking offense for being hurt is a trap set by the Enemy better known as the Devil. Offense leads to Anger which as one of the seven deadly sins is an unreasonable desire for revenge. Jesus he reminds us knows how to deal with tribulations and troubles (pressure, anguish, and burden). He died on the cross for our sins so that we might live free from sin. But when we practice unforgiveness we place a barrier between ourselves and Christ.
So in the near term, the object of our unforgiveness leads to compulsion(s) to mask the pain inside. The compulsion usually manifests itself in some unhealthy behavior that continues in a downward spiral. And in the long term we set ourselves up to side with the Enemy and turn ourselves over to his camp. As we learned in the parable of the slave whose large debt to his master was forgiven but that same slave could not bring himself to forgive a small debt of a fellow slave; The master will not forgive us if we cannot forgive others.
Resisting offense allows us to deal with the real battles of life and avoid traps (pay back) set by the Enemy. Forgiving Cavin says is not a feeling it is an act of the will. When we perform that act of forgiveness we draw ourselves nearer to Christ. As St. Francis points out; “it is in pardoning that we are pardoned.”
The CD reminds me that by resisting offense and practicing forgiveness my life on earth becomes much less complicated and my spiritual condition becomes one that allows me to draw closer to Christ as I attempt to assume a mantle of God consciousness.
The Essential Mission
Mobilizing Catholics For the New Evangelization
