I am catching up with posting online my articles.
This is the continuation of the previous article:
FORGIVING OTHERS AND FORGIVING SELF - PART 1
But you are Christian and you have been told to forgive your enemies. And so you override the initial and automatic reaction of wanting to take revenge and you approach this person who robbed you and beat you up and you say:
"I forgive you what you did to me".
Then you go home and you are glad that you have forgiven your enemy just like Jesus ( who is your ideal ) did.
Obviously not every Christian ( religious ) is like this person from this example and there are many people who actually let themselves be directed by their emotional reactions and they take revenge. And they don't even see it as a "sin" as they make some nicely looking justifications within their mind and then they reaffirm it by finding people ( usually close friends ) who also support their point of view.
Anyway let's go to the point which most of the people miss when it comes to forgiveness...
So let's go some years into the past prior to the moment when you were robbed and beaten up. One of your neighbours was beaten and beaten up severely. You were shocked by this whole incident ( just like the rest of the other people ). Since that moment you have become "attentive" to any similar stories that you have read about in the newspapers or seen on TV. And then you have also watched movies which were showing how innocent people have been attacked, robbed, abused and killed by some "freaks". And slowly over the years you have become more worried that something like this may happen to you as you have made an idea and belief within your mind that really innocent people can be attacked and harmed by some robbers etc.
Now... you are religious person that beliefs in universal love and god but at the same time you have more and more often these thoughts within your mind that this world is unpredictable and that there are bad people who just harm others for no apparent reason. And so you also start to pray to almighty god for protection so that something like this never happens to you.
To be continued