Forgiveness Is Not Earned

Well, here we are, the 52nd week of the year and the final reflective post from the great book, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways To Be A Servant Leader and Build Trust, Making Common Sense Common Practice , by Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley. I love books that are broken into 52 lessons like this one. Every year I pick a book like this one where I can read a weekly passage, reflect, and then dedicate writing a blog post each week. If your looking for a great book to inspire you in 2023, this could be that one. Simple Truth #52 was “Forgiveness Is Letting Go Of All Hope For A Better Past. We need to practice forgiveness because, as Collins said, “You can’t revise history to make it better” (p. 133). When we forgive we are doing an action of faith.

Gandhi taught us that forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. We must remember that forgiveness is a gift and gifts are not earned, they are given. Collins told us, “Forgiveness can’t be earned by the offender; it can only be given by the offended” (p. 133). The most courageous act of leadership is to forgo the temptation to take revenge on those on the other side of an issue or who have wronged us in some way. Bottom-line is that those we serve are human. The thing about us humans is that we all have personal issues, frailties and struggles, we inevitably do lots of things that make others unhappy. So, let’s put empathy into action and show compassion and forgive.

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