FAIR's Rising Generation

A while ago we had a lesson on forgiveness in Young Women’s which brought half of us to tears as most our lessons do (we’re a very… spiritual bunch). Partway through our teacher asked us “why should we forgive?”. Of course she answered the question herself (it would have been a gong show if she hadn’t) but being myself I needed to explore the issue further. This blog post is my answer to the question “why should we forgive?”.

1 → Because He said so. God commands us to forgive if we expect to be forgiven. It is not our job to decide who should be wiped clean of their sins and misdeeds because in most situations we could not even hope to understand the emotional standpoint of the transgressor. We have not suffered for their sins and their mistakes as our Lord has and therefore it is simply foolish of us to think we have the authority to judge them. Since we do not understand the person, nor feel their pain nor guilt we cannot decide whether they can be forgiven or not. If it’s justice you’re looking for, believe me when I say that if they are not eligible for forgiveness then Heavenly Father will make sure they get what they deserve.

2 → We should forgive because our Heaven Brother, Jesus Christ has suffered for everybody’s sins, even those of the person who you’re mad at.

3 → We should do it for the person. I know you’re mad at them, but a lot of the time people don’t do mean stuff because they’re horrible people, there’s usually a reason. We must have compassion for the people who offend or hurt us to avoid hurting them back. To me the guilt brought by not being forgiven is greater than the guilt caused by whatever I did that made me feel guilty in the first place. In some cases you’re causing them more emotional discomfort than they caused you, which brings you down to their level and possibly even further. We must truly love our fellow man, we should not wish to cause them more harm in anyway, through not forgiving them or through revenge.

4 → If all else fails, do it for yourself. Referring back to my last post, you have to decide if you want to be known as the moody, emotional person who refuses to forgive people, or do you want to be known as the person who’s man enough to forgive everyone? Also, if you hope to be forgiven you must forgive others (3 Nephi 13:14).

There are plenty of reasons to forgive others; the only question is, have you grasped them all enough for them to outweigh your anger? Hopefully the answer is yes, but if it’s not then I’d suggest prayer and study the Scriptures, because if you honestly knew how important it is to forgive you wouldn’t have a problem doing it.

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FRG needs more writers, regardless of age, who are interested in writing a guest post for us, so if you have a message to share you may submit a sample of your words to us via our web form at http://youth.fairlds.org/contact.php.  Chances are good that we’ll like what you have to say and set you up as a guest blogger on our site.

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