Emotional Suicide, Anyone?

We are told in today’s reading (Matthew 18:21-35) that the unforgiving servant will be “tortured” for failing to forgive another, after having been forgiven himself.

Because a parable is a symbolic way of talking about a profound truth, we can take the word tortured metaphorically and ask, “In what way are we ‘tortured’ when we fail to forgive?” Failing to forgive makes us hostage to our hurt.

Unable to move on, we become captives, prisoners to our own resentment. Unwilling to accept the imperfections of others, we can become judgmental. The end result of the failure to forgive is bitterness — a painful, torturous emotional state.

In essence, in that way, “are all just prisoners here of our own device” because we nourish a negative emotion that produces nothing good in our life. We feed and water a poisonous plant that slowly strangles the vibrancy and beauty of life out of us, and out our heart.

By refusing to forgive, we swallow a bitter poison pill that slowly kills us, often through hypertension, or heart attack.

It is literally committing emotional suicide.

When Jesus tells us to forgive, “not seven times, but 77 times,” it is for our own well-being.

Forgive, for goodness sake!

Forgive someone today!