Forgiveness is the Master Key

Once upon a time my husband Cameron was a courier, going in and out of something like 120 locations nightly to deliver secure parcels. Can you picture the size of the ring needed to carry keys for all those doors? It was the size of a dinner plate! Imagine, though, having to drag around such a weight day in and day out? Life can sometimes feel like lugging around an enormous ring of keys, slowing us down and making lots of noise in the process.

As we journey towards healing and wholeness as Christians, an area of greatest contention is forgiveness. How often we skirt around it! We can’t forgive someone who’s hurt us, or the magnitude of something we’ve done makes us baulk at forgiving ourselves. If you are skating around an issue and trying everything except actually forgiving, it’s like having a key to healing but choosing not to use it. Excuses are common evasions, especially for things that happened in our childhood. We look back with contemporary eyes. “Dad was stressed. Mum didn’t mean to say that. Everyone makes mistakes.” All that could well be true, but adult hindsight only papers over childhood wounds. They remain active, embedded in our spirits until the door shielding them is finally unlocked and God is granted access.

Forgiveness is never simple. Forgiveness isn’t just a key, it’s God’s Master Key. As the name implies, this key has mastery over all others, can open every door. Why wouldn’t we jump at using it?

Nelson Mandela chose to use God’s Master Key to open the door to his future when he walked free from prison after twenty-seven years. “As I walked out of the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison”.

And that’s the key (if you’ll pardon the pun). Using the key is a choice. If you choose not to use it, there’s no ‘master’ about it - it’s just a bit of metal. It only becomes the Master Key when you choose to meet the Master on the threshold of the doorway to healing and wholeness and swap your burden for His light one.