Forgiveness and the sort

"love covers all wrongs." - Proverbs 10:12
"love is patient, love is kind. it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." - I Cor 13:4-7

Interesting... These two verses came up in my devos yesterday and it got me thinking. Sometimes these verses are used to describe the kind of love we should have for each other and i was reminded yesterday that perhaps they are also a very clear picture of God. God is love right? God is patient and kind and so on and so forth but the part that stuck out to me was that God's love for us really wiped our sin out of the picture. His love covered all of our wrongs and keeps no record of them. That is huge. Even Donald Trump would say so.

So what do we do in response to this? As a child of God I realize that i can accept God's love and then love Him in return. One of the results of this choice is that I am now also meant to love others in my life with the overflow of God's love that is in my life.

So to summarize: God's love for me -> my love for others
This means that if I love God, am committed to obeying Him and have an overflow of his love in my life, I can forgive anybody who "wrongs" me because God's love is so big that it covers all wrongs. Like Char told me once, we can choose to let other people off the hook because God let us off the hook for much worse things.

So to further summarize: as a result of God's love for me and my choice to love Him back, I can and should extend the same love (which enables forgiveness) He has given me to others. Forgiveness at the root is really done as a showing of love for God.

This is really a challenge for me in my life right now. Sometimes it's easier to shove problems out of mind and not really address it. It's hard to face it head on and I realize that i can't bring around forgiveness and the sort by my own power. I know it is my choice but it is clear that only God can prompt and bring my heart to that place where i can make that decision. It's a testament of the weakness of my human character but it's strangely comforting to know that God can empower me to do it. It's an arduous process but darn it, i will not give up. I can't.