It happened back in 2018, a police officer had just gotten off duty. She was tired; it had been a long shift, and it was now after 10 p.m.. Her apartment building was right across the street, so she walked over with only one thing on her mind: sleep. When she walked into the apartment, she was astounded to learn someone was sitting on the sofa, eating cereal. She pulled out her gun as a first response and shot the young black man, Botham Jean dead in cold blood. Amber Guyger learned later that she had missed a lot of big details. She was, in fact, not even in her apartment. This event plagued me many nights, and I agonized in prayer about what happened to this young, clearly innocent man. What baffled me most was that at the officer’s trial, the brother of Botham sat on that witness stand and said he forgave her. As he sat in tears, so did I. I knew it must have been the hardest thing to do. In my heart I knew only God could forgive so extraordinarily.
In the passage of scripture we’re looking at today, as we top off Jacob’s genealogy and “The Joseph Chronicles.” Gen. 50:20 is what I’ve affectionately called the 50/20 rule. It’s the rule of forgiveness, God’s way. The culmination of this study. One of the precepts of The GOoD Life.” After the death of Jacob, Joseph was sent a letter by his brothers saying their dad had charged him to ‘forgive’ them. Acting as if he believed them, he agreed to not only forgive the same brothers who jumped him, took his multi-colored coat off of him that same dad had given him, threw him in a pit, and then sat around to eat while he cried out for help—pulling him out moments later only to sell him into slavery.
If I were them, I would assume the same thing. Dad’s dead, there’s nothing to hold him back from displaying all his wrath on us. It was rightly in Joseph’s power to exact revenge on his brothers for the harm they meant for him. Instead, Joseph does something that, in comparison to when I reflect on what Brandt Jean (Botham’s brother) did that day on the stand, was nothing short of miraculous. He had every right to condemn Amber Guyger for her misstep. He, like Joseph… and Jesus, who forgave a whole host of people who were hanging Him on a cross, did something I believe is truly supernatural. They forgave from their hearts, and did not hold malice toward people that meant harm toward them.
They say to err is human, but to forgive is divine. How true it is. Sometimes, sadly, the hardest person for us to forgive is ourselves when an event has happened in our lives. I want to encourage every eye that lands on this article that it’s always God’s will to give you a better life through forgiving others. I want to encourage you to realize that forgiveness is never for the other person; it is always for you. To forgive them, you must release them, to let that party go out of your debt, in other words, they no longer owe you anything, not even an apology. It doesn’t have to mean you forget about what they did and treat them as if nothing ever happened. If someone was embezzling money from your company, I would certainly not advise you to re-hire them, but I would advise you to release them. I understand this is supernatural, it’s taking the high road, but if you want to live the “GOoD life” you were meant to live, this is the only way to go.
Thoughts for your consideration;
God deals with the hearts of those that do wrong. While sometimes we think they’re going on, living their best lives, we must choose to trust God’s ability to fight for us, so that we don’t choose to take vengeance ourselves.
Don’t worry about revenge, and don’t rejoice when you see “their day” come. It’s not indicating true forgiveness if you still want the person to suffer.
Be careful also to do good to that person and be as cordial as possible, speaking well of them as often as possible. Forgetting not that Joseph not only forgave his brothers, but he also took care of them and their large families for the remainder of his life.
GOoD Life Pre-Cepts
KeviJ
