I do most of my forgiving and a fair amount of my praying while I am running. A fair chunk of my running is not particularly fast and so I have plenty of time to think, pray and listen to audiobooks. I often invite Jesus through His Spirit to go for a run with me. I am after all running amongst everything He has made and thought was good.

Sometimes as I run through the woods I began to pay attention to my thoughts and notice what’s going on inside my head. I’ve learned to notice when people or situations that were wounding to me come back to me for whatever reason. The brain doesn’t always follow straight lines. You start by thinking about one thing, which then reminds you of an entirely different thing and before you know it you’ve jumped tracks. My mind would find its way repeatedly to certain situations where I’d been criticized, or not supported, or misunderstood, or provoked or whatever it was. It eventually dawned on me that whatever else I might need to learn from reflecting on these moments, whatever truth there might be for me to help me grow, I was never going to get there if I was still holding on to the offence. If in other words I hadn’t forgiven.

No doubt there are things I will need to seek forgiveness for, maybe even wrapped up in the same memory, which would not be particularly surprising but first I needed to forgive. Doing so was, and is, essential for the health of my heart and soul, it was necessary for me to be both free and for me to be obedient.

“Father, I forgive X. I let it go into your hands. I hold no grudge. Amen.”

If I think about it, which I don’t always, I notice a few elements. I need to remind myself I’m talking to my Heavenly Father and He is only my Father because I am forgiven in Christ. I’m a forgiven person who needs to do some forgiving.

I also need to be specific, spit it out, not just generic forgiveness but very specific, pointed, and human shaped. I need to forgive them.

I need the next two bits to really help me ground this forgiveness. What exactly does forgiving mean it if it doesn’t mean letting go and no longer holding a grudge? Well, first I had to trust God with my hurts and also with the enacting of justice. It is not my place to stand in judgement over anyone, I’ll let God do that. But I also had to let go of any resentment I had clearly been holding on to. I had to choose to stop doing that. Again only by giving it to God did it feel like it was no longer mine to hold on to.

I pray the same thing every time. Whenever a memory comes to mind that I notice I’m stewing on, or repeating, that feels like a weight in my soul I pray the same little prayer. If the same person or memory comes around again, I pray it again and again until it eventually stops coming to mind. I keep praying “Into your hands. I hold no grudge” until I’ve properly let go and that’s how I know I have. I stop thinking about it, no need to anymore.

I’ll often go on to pray The Lord’s Prayer because this is basically a section of it and has a little bit more to it than my simple line and there are other things I’ll need the Lord’s help with but when it comes to forgiving, that’s what and how I pray.

What do you pray when you need to forgive? Let me know in the comments below.