Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone... Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:17, 21 (NIV)

 

Learn to heal from old hurts and never doubt God's goodness.

While we may have found reasons to pursue revenge or harbour grudges, those thoughts or feelings don’t do us any good and instead burden us. Trust God and lean on Him to protect your heart from becoming callous and bitter. Over time, you will overcome the humiliation of rejection and the rage of resentment.

Often those who hurt us are hurt themselves. They haven't figured out a better way to deal with their hurt, so they take it out on us. We, on the other hand, have by faith the Spirit of love dwelling in us. Our healing does not depend on their admission of guilt or remorse. Choose to let go and release the weight of unforgiveness, whether they apologised or not. Be the one who grows and learns most from the bad experience and move forward with grace and resilience.

Forgive but never, never forget.

Never forget the lessons you learned from the wrongs done to you. Remember them well and make sure that you never do the same to someone else. Instead of being overcome by evil, you triumphed over it through good. You may wonder how far we should go to forgive those who wronged us. According to the Apostle Paul, our forgiveness must go to the extent of feeding our enemies with love and care (Romans 12:20). In doing so, we become like Christ and acting like Christ.

Our faith in Christ not only make us better people but it also has a positive impact on those around us. This is most important when we are living in a world divided by conflicts over many issues and over many generations.