Would You Be Able to Forgive?

On my blog over the past year I've written several posts about forgiveness, unforgiveness, the consequences of it and what the Bible clearly says about the topic. As as Christian, forgiveness is imperative. Forgiveness should be one of the characteristics of a follower of Christ, especially according to Jesus' words in Matthew 6:14-15, "If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins." Unforgiveness is like taking poison and hoping the other person dies. I do think most of us would say that it's easier to forgive others for some things over others (and am very glad that God doesn't have this mindset). Yesterday I read a story from the sport's world which I think is tragic, and coincidentally, it involved a New Zealand athlete. Belarusian female shot putter Nadzeya Ostapchuk won a gold medal in the recent London Olympic games, beating world champion, New Zealander Valerie Adams, who won the silver. After winning the gold medal, Ostapchuk was stripped of her victory for testing positive to a banned substance and being banned from the sport for a year. After emphatically denying it, news just came out that her coach put the drugs in a drink of hers without the athlete's knowledge. The gold medal was stripped and the ban is in effect. But now Ostapchuk has to make a choice. Will she choose to forgive her coach who sabotaged her career? Or will she hold on to bitterness, anger and unforgiveness? Each day we all have the choice to forgive others. Sometimes it's over smaller things, and as is in this case, it can be over bigger things. My choice is to forgive others, because of Matthew 6:14-15. To check out more on this story go to http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10833537