How to Get Free When Someone Hurts YouSample

Cut the Chain!

The best way I can think of to describe unforgiveness — or holding onto hurt — is that it’s like attaching a ball and chain to your ankle. Every time you try to run your race, that ball bangs against your leg, hindering your progress and causing you pain. It affects every area of your life and steals your joy. It’s bondage!

Hebrews 12:1 says, “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” I truly believe that, among other things, unforgiveness is one of those weights and yes, one of those sins. It weighs us down! Every time you rehearse that pain, remember that wrong, feel that “rot gut” in your stomach, there’s that ball and chain again, banging against your leg, keeping you from effectively running your race. It affects every area of your life.

The only way I know to cut that chain and run unhindered into your future with peace and freedom, is to forgive.

Mark 11:25 says, “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.” I don’t know about you, but I want my father in heaven to forgive my trespasses, don’t you? If so, we can see that there’s a condition right there. We must forgive.

Notice it says, “If you have anything against anyone.” I’m pretty sure that covers your situation. Even people who should know better, even those who don’t deserve forgiveness. Anyone! Anything! The Bible says there’s simply no one we’re allowed to hold a grudge against.

I love Mark 11:25 in the Amplified Classic Bible (AMPC): “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him and let it drop (leave it, let it go), in order that your Father Who is in heaven may also forgive you your [own] failings and shortcomings and let them drop.”

I love that visual! Just let it drop. Leave it. Let it go. Picture yourself dropping that hurt, that pain (that ball and chain) and just walking away from it, never to return. Leaving it. Letting it go. That is a picture of true freedom, my friend. That’s how God wants you to live.