{"id":687,"date":"2018-10-10T05:00:15","date_gmt":"2018-10-10T05:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?p=687"},"modified":"2018-10-08T11:54:08","modified_gmt":"2018-10-08T11:54:08","slug":"687","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/10\/687.html","title":{"rendered":"If This Guy Could Forgive, Anyone Can (10 Steps to Freedom Week 5 Day 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"unsplash-logoDaniel
Daniel H. Tong<\/span><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The following is a devotion from my message series\u00a010 Steps to Freedom<\/a>. I hope these devotionals help you experience lasting freedom in Jesus!<\/em><\/p>\n

STEP FIVE: day 3<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Release your hurt through <\/i>forgiveness<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Before his very eyes, Joseph had the opportunity to pay back his brothers for the harm they had caused him years before. In the book of Genesis, we see the story of twelve brothers, the sons of Israel. Joseph was the favorite son and everyone knew it, especially Joseph. His brothers, filled with jealousy, seized an opportunity to gang up on him when their father wasn\u2019t looking. Joseph was sold into slavery to the neighboring Egyptians and their father was told Joseph had been torn apart by wild animals. As the years go on, the brothers move on, assuming that Joseph would never be heard from again, even if he was still alive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Joseph was not only very much alive, but God was guiding his steps from slavery to the second highest position of power in all of Egypt, to guide the nation through a prophesied famine. So when unbeknownst to them the brothers find themselves standing in front of the mighty Joseph (now known as Zaphenath-Paneah) begging for food, Joseph literally had their lives in his hands. But instead of paying them back, he did something shocking: he forgave them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut Joseph said to them, \u2018Don\u2019t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me,\u00a0but God intended\u00a0it for good\u00a0to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.\u00a0So then, don\u2019t be afraid.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/span>Genesis 50:19-21<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of retaliating, Joseph chose to release his hurt through forgiveness. If he could do it, so can you.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION<\/span><\/p>\n

1. If you had the chance to confront those who have hurt you the most and if you could make them feel the pain they caused you, would you? What do you think that would accomplish?<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Joseph could move past his bitterness because he could see the hand of God behind even the tragedies in his life. Are you at a place where you could say the same thing?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You can read other devotional entries\u00a0for 10 Steps to Freedom\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is a devotion from my message series\u00a010 Steps to Freedom. I hope these devotionals help you experience lasting freedom in Jesus! STEP FIVE: day 3 Release your hurt through forgiveness Before his very eyes, Joseph had the opportunity to pay back his brothers for the harm they had caused him years before. In…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[31,114,64,344,172],"class_list":["post-687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-10-steps-to-freedom","tag-bible","tag-forgive","tag-forgiveness","tag-joseph","tag-old-testament"],"yoast_head":"\nIf This Guy Could Forgive, Anyone Can (10 Steps to Freedom Week 5 Day 3) - Next Steps<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If anyone had an excuse not to forgive, this guy had it. Yet he chose to forgive anyway. If he could do it, so can you.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If This Guy Could Forgive, Anyone Can (10 Steps to Freedom Week 5 Day 3) - Next Steps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If anyone had an excuse not to forgive, this guy had it. Yet he chose to forgive anyway. If he could do it, so can you.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/10\/687.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next Steps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-10-10T05:00:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-10-08T11:54:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/10\/daniel-h-tong-202079-unsplash-300x200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Josh Daffern\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@joshdaffern\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"If This Guy Could Forgive, Anyone Can (10 Steps to Freedom Week 5 Day 3) - Next Steps","description":"If anyone had an excuse not to forgive, this guy had it. Yet he chose to forgive anyway. If he could do it, so can you.","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"If This Guy Could Forgive, Anyone Can (10 Steps to Freedom Week 5 Day 3) - Next Steps","og_description":"If anyone had an excuse not to forgive, this guy had it. Yet he chose to forgive anyway. If he could do it, so can you.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/10\/687.html","og_site_name":"Next Steps","article_author":"facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern","article_published_time":"2018-10-10T05:00:15+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-10-08T11:54:08+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/10\/daniel-h-tong-202079-unsplash-300x200.jpg"}],"author":"Josh Daffern","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@joshdaffern","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/10\/687.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/10\/687.html","name":"If This Guy Could Forgive, Anyone Can (10 Steps to Freedom Week 5 Day 3) - Next Steps","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/10\/687.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/10\/687.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/10\/daniel-h-tong-202079-unsplash-300x200.jpg","datePublished":"2018-10-10T05:00:15+00:00","dateModified":"2018-10-08T11:54:08+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#\/schema\/person\/8ac2e15479ad6a320d2082837203cb7c"},"description":"If anyone had an excuse not to forgive, this guy had it. Yet he chose to forgive anyway. If he could do it, so can you.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/10\/687.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/10\/687.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/10\/687.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/10\/daniel-h-tong-202079-unsplash-300x200.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/10\/daniel-h-tong-202079-unsplash-300x200.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/10\/687.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"If This Guy Could Forgive, Anyone Can (10 Steps to Freedom Week 5 Day 3)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/","name":"Next Steps","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Josh Daffern","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#\/schema\/person\/8ac2e15479ad6a320d2082837203cb7c","name":"Josh Daffern","description":"Born and raised in California, Josh graduated college from California Baptist University and spent two years as a missionary in Africa before coming back to America and finding the love of his life (Robin). Josh graduated from New Orleans Seminary with a Masters of Divinity and a Doctor of Ministry. Josh has been involved in full-time ministry for over twenty years. He enjoys hiking, beach volleyball, reading, playing anything competitive, and rough-housing with his kids. Josh, his gorgeous wife Robin, his outrageously handsome boys Zeke, Shepherd and Lincoln and his princess Elle, live in northern Virginia. Josh also blogs on Patheos as New Wineskins: an Apologist for the Modern Church and you can find links to all his content on joshdaffern.com. Enjoy the blog!","sameAs":["http:\/\/joshdaffern.com","facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern","https:\/\/x.com\/joshdaffern"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/author\/jdaffern"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":689,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions\/689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}