1 Samuel 11:12-13 (NKJV)
\u201cThen the people said to Samuel, \u2018Who is he who said, \u201cShall Saul reign over us?\u201d Bring the men, that we may put them to death.\u2019 But Saul said, \u2018Not a man shall be put to death this day, for today the Lord has accomplished salvation in Israel.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Life is full of provocations, counter-provocations, retributions, and retaliations. People do and say cruel things to each other, and people are usually unforgiving; waiting for the right time to pay back in kind. And the vicious circle of hurts and counter-hurts continues. That\u2019s why we are where we are in the world today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But as pilgrims, we are called to break the cycle within our sphere of influence. There is a spiritual warfare that is not by prayer but by forgiveness. We undercut the work of Satan by refusing to act as he expects, and thereby free ourselves and our people from his venom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Forgiveness is a difficult but very precious jewel. It\u2019s the crowning jewel of the pilgrim life. It\u2019s the ability to love despite pain inflicted. It\u2019s the grace to release offenders from our hearts, even when they don\u2019t deserve it. But truth be told, it\u2019s not easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who deserved forgiveness? Who can say that he has earned it? Were we not all freely forgiven, while we still lived in the dregs of sin? Jesus said to the disciples, \u201cWhosoever you forgive is forgiven.\u201d Can you imagine the power we wield as pilgrims? We are called to break the cycle of violence by freely forgiving those who cause us pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The people wanted to punish those who had initially rejected Saul as king, but he rather chose to magnanimously forgive them. He used his power to forgive, rather than to retaliate. It\u2019s good to daily seek God\u2019s face for the power to make the right choice; the power to forgive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the popular adage goes, \u201cIt is human to err; but it is divine to forgive.\u201d When we forgive, we manifest our heavenly Father\u2019s nature. The world expects us to retaliate. Our hearts usually want to retaliate. But our Father expects us to forgive. He calls us to act counter-culture, as we live under His abundant grace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1 Samuel 11:12-13 (NKJV)\u201cThen the people said to Samuel, \u2018Who is he who said, \u201cShall Saul reign over us?\u201d Bring the men, that we may put them to death.\u2019 But Saul said, \u2018Not a man shall be put to death this day, for today the Lord has accomplished salvation in Israel.\u2019\u201d Life is full of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-reflections-from-1st-samuel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/1-Samuel-Cover.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6644,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6642\/revisions\/6644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}