I am like a tea kettle on a burner getting hotter all the time until I start to scream. I don’t want that. It seems that my anger, frustration, and unforgivingness and bitterness well up in me like a simmering then boiling pot boiling over and causing a huge mess. I think the answer is forgiveness. Letting go of the frustration and laying down the weight of being hurt or offended or wronged will allow that freedom and peace God wants in my life. As much as I often want to hold on to bitterness and anger, I really hate how it makes me feel and then act or react. I want to and choose to forgive. Then you can help me to respond healthily and not be like the kettle about to pop its top, but like a kettle filled, but not on the burner with the water from it to be even, calm, and refreshing.
God, I want to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. The things I choose to throw off are my anger, bitterness, unforgivingness, negativity, short temper, meanness,…
And run with perseverance the race marked out for us… By choosing to say, God please forgive me for these things and the harm I have been doing to my family and to myself. I have made my own mess, even the anxiety… Forgive me for letting anger run and rule and ruin me. Forgive me for my critical judgmental negative attitude which brings my whole house down. I, alone, can make an incredible, remarkable, noticeable, obvious difference. I CAN change the tone and atmosphere of our home. Forgive me for my example of unforgivingness short temper and negativity. Forgive the bitterness and modeling of all this that doesn’t please or honor you nor direct my kids to you.
I need complete forgiveness and healing from you! I need this cloud and tense jaw gone. I want to bring a rainbow and sunshine to my home. I want my kids to grow up feeling like our home really is a haven of safety peace and joy. But to do that, I need to be in a different place and model that.
“God, I know I can’t live righteously without you. I rise each morning and ask for your help. I go to bed each night and thank you for your help during the day.” – Pastor Harper
So, God, help me. I choose to forgive Trevor for not being what I need him to be. Please take away my bitterness toward him and his family. And please forgive and remove the criticism and judgmental attitude toward him, his choices and his family and their choices and the way they raised him. None of us are perfect and none of us always make right choices – me included. And please forgive and remove my negativity and attitude toward my children and my impatience. I am not the model I should be for them. I realize that not only do I need forgiveness, but I need to forgive myself too.
I choose to let go of the weight I carry of guilt, of not being and doing good enough. I choose to lay that down and lay myself before you and rest in you. I will trust that you have forgiven me and you are offering your hand out of peace and the abundant life that God desires. I know that abundant life includes peace, forgiveness, freedom, freedom from bitterness anger wrath rage malice
… And it is to be filled with the spirit. For the fruit of the spirit is love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self control
“God has made is possible for all of us to live righteously, not perfectly, buy righteously. It is good to try to lice righteously. Look inward and repent. Repentance is freedom.”
Righteous living i