Many bad things have happened in my life. Some were entirely self-inflicted. Some were bad luck. Still others were done to me and not my fault in any way. Most of you can probably say the same thing about your own lives.

What if we all decided to forgive everything? How would our world be changed if we just forgot all the hurt and decided to move forward giving everyone a clean slate? How different would our lives be if blame and vengeance were simply erased from existence?

All of humanity now defines itself by its grievances. All we see is conflict. Everyone is mad at somebody. The flames of hostility are constantly fueled with bitterness and infighting. Individually, we wage interpersonal rage wars over grudges against our perceived enemies in our communities and workplaces.

We all cling to our pain as if it has value.

I never thought of myself as an angry person. The image I project is of an affable extrovert. This masks a seething rage. A lifetime of victimizing myself with memories of traumatic events over and over has taken its toll. This is my worst personality trait and has stolen many years of my joy.

People I trust have wronged me many times. It does not matter if I helped bring my hurt about through plain stupidity or by provoking someone in a way that led them to retaliate against me. These injured feelings always come with powerful emotions like feeling abandoned, betrayed or deceived.

I have allowed these emotions to become an anger that has led to many foolish decisions over the years. More often I turn it inward. There, it infects my life through poor self-care and by sabotaging my relationships. Negativity festers, altering my view of life by feeding a pernicious suspicion and distrust of everything.

I understand now that getting angry is a reaction, but remaining angry is a choice.

Forgiveness is the only thing that frees us from the resentment that comes from living a life rooted in wounded feelings. We have divided ourselves into camps that are united by grudges held for real or imagined offenses. People are demanding reparations and preparing to fight over a wide variety of lies. We forget that no one can be heard when everyone is shouting.

Forgiving others does not mean we should ignore our feelings. Emotional wounds are like any other injury. Appropriate interventions along with time are needed to promote healing. We must deal with pain by intentionally trying to resolve it. Any path that leads to true forgiveness, an emotional disconnection from the hurt, is going to include some kind of commitment to spiritual growth and enlightenment.

Make the choice to abandon bitterness and anger. I have to be intentional about avoiding all kinds of negativity. Miserable people will co-sign your rage. It validates their own dystopian view of the future and the world around them. Holding on to your pain is what robs you of happiness and limits your choices.

I have had to take a hard look at the headspace I give to events that are either far behind me in the past or right in front of me but beyond my control. Both drain my energy and blur my focus on my real purpose which is trying to live a peaceful life filled with joy and meaningful relationships.

Your perception of me is not my responsibility nor does your opinion of me define my reality. Peace cannot coexist with a need for validation. Living in peace or in pursuit of approval from others is also a choice. Existing in clarity or chaos, power or pettiness comes down to being in control of our emotions.

The wrong energy is a drain. The right energy can be fuel.

When I make choices that inspire, educate and elevate me I am not easily angered. My feelings are protected when I learn to lean on and draw strength from a higher power. What I allow into my mind shapes me. The things I read, watch and discuss all have an impact.

Too many of us absorb small thoughts and end up trapped in a small life. We allow our minds to stay immersed in senseless debate over insipid topics that are irrelevant to our real purpose in life. Shows, movies and books that shred confidence in the future and foster distrust of our fellows only reinforce our insecurities.

Everything I do programs me for either success or failure. I have had to find the discipline to protect my thoughts by focusing on solutions instead of problems. My brain requires knowledge. I have to be relentless about guarding my peace.

Forgiveness is the catalyst that allows us to replace negative feelings with positive feelings.

We find the thing that we are seeking in people, places or circumstances. If we are looking for bad or good that is what we will find. No one is open to any agreement. People have adopted an attitude that generates conflict and hurt feelings because that is all we see.

That is not the attitude exemplified by our heavenly leader, Christ Jesus. We regularly hear rhetoric about Christian values. There are many who claim to be Christians but fail to recall that the scriptures say faith without works is dead.

Christ said that if you are about to make a sacrifice to God but are not at peace with your brother, leave your gift at the altar and go make peace with your brother before making your offering to God. Being a peacekeeper promotes God’s grace and way of thinking.

When Peter asked Jesus if he had to forgive his brother seven times he was told to forgive him seven times seven times. There is no divine loophole when it comes to extending forgiveness to one another. Scripturally we have an obligation to forgive.

Would Jesus ever endorse proliferating conflict for any reason? The God of the Hebrew and Christian Greek scriptures is all about peace, love and forgiveness. The world would be a better place if more Christians tried to exemplify the attitude of their Creator instead of clinging to the insolence and insensitivity that is all too prevalent in our world.

My personal efforts to free myself from the bondage of resentment have been energized recently through a concerted effort to study the word of God and eliminate anything from my life that blocks my personal relationship with him. I try to see people through the eyes of the eternal and divine instead of the transient and profane.

We have all prayed the Lord’s Prayer. We ask for God to forgive us our sins only if we forgive those who have sinned against us. This is a path that leads to healing, love and brotherhood. My efforts to reshape my attitudes and personality towards God’s way of thinking are always rewarding.

The only path to forgiveness for our personal wrongs may well be granting forgiveness to each other on a grand scale. Anyone being offered forgiveness would have to accept it, right? Then we could begin to replace the hurt with an infusion of hope and recall the true essence of our humanity.

Trading evil for empathy, animosity for adoration, conflict for concern and jaded thoughts for joyful ones could help us move towards living up to our proclamations of being true Christians. A culture of grand ideals and hopefulness cannot be built on a foundation of grievances and discord.

For it is written: “A fine tree cannot produce rotten fruit.”