HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 8, 2025 – It can cling to you like lint – a careless word spoken in haste or a quick sideways glance that’s just as quickly forgotten, but not by you. Not by some part of you that noted it, recorded it, catalogued it, and filed it away for later ruminating in a moment of uneasy solitude or weakness.

We’re not immune to these moments as born-again believers. They can sneak up on us as much as they can sneak up on anyone else, but the difference is that we have an obligation to see them for what they are and to disperse them with a silent “I choose to forgive”, even if we don’t feel like forgiving.

Because being born-again is much like being in the army. It’s not option for us not to forgive, any more than it’s not an option for a soldier to disobey an order. We forgive not because we feel like it but because we’ve been ordered to forgive.

What a wonderful thing, to have been ordered to forgive, since the root of nearly all human suffering is unforgiveness. It starts as a grudge, or resentment, or a simmering hostility that grows into self-pity, hatred, false memories, depression, and a whole range of emotional disorders that for some may even lead to suicidal ideation. I know this progression from a careless word to slit wrists, because I lived it as an unforgiving atheist. And the more burdened by unforgiveness I was, the shorter the time span between the perceived slight and the slitting.

As born-again believers, we have no grounds to have so much as a spiritual bad-hair day. That’s because we’re not merely advised to forgive, we’re ordered to forgive, and in forgiving we instantly unburden what could have weighed us down and compromised us. This is a profound blessing, to be ordered to forgive. We bless ourselves and others when we choose to forgive and in return are blessed and forgiven by God.

However small the slight, choose to forgive. However careless the words, choose to forgive. Even if the slight and the words were calculated to hurt you, choose to forgive. Never let your hurt progress to a grudge or a tit-for-tat. Never let the devil get his claws in you that way, because he will, if you let him. He’s always looking for a way in.

Resentment can accumulate like lint on your soul, so light that you don’t even know it’s there. Don’t let it. Blow it off. Always choose to forgive.