1. Write out a confession in your journal.  Confess the things you have done or left undone.  Be honest.  End it by sincerely asking for God’s forgiveness.  God knows your faults and failings—you will not be telling God anything God does not already know.  The exercise is for your benefit, not God’s!
2. Set aside an hour this week to consider your views on forgiveness.  How much of your understanding of forgiveness is based in Scripture and how much comes from our cultural influences?  Use the concordance in your bible and look up passages that speak of forgiveness.  Allow God to teach you something about forgiveness that you don’t already know.
3. What do you need to do to forgive someone?  Allow the Holy Spirit to guide your actions.  Spend 10 minutes each day in prayer asking for the ability to forgive a past hurt.  Might you make a phone call...write a letter...or invite a face-to-face conversation this week? 

Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do.
 “I’ll do the judging,” says God.  “I’ll take care of it.”  Romans 12:19
 
The Lord sees everything, whether good or bad.  Proverbs 15:3
 
Do not judge, and you will not be judged.  Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. 
Forgive, and you will be forgiven.  Luke 6:37

1. Bell says, “Everyone I know has wounds.  And some are small, kind of petty, you know.  You just need to get over it.  But for a lot of people they’re big and serious and deep wounds.”  What kind of wounds do you have?
2. How have your wounds shaped who you are today? 
3. Have you ever really gotten revenge?  If so, how did it make you feel afterwards?  If we take revenge when we get hurt, do you think it’s like saying to God, “I think I can handle this better than you”?
4. If God’s right there when people get hurt, why do you think he doesn’t step in to stop it from happening?  Do you trust that God is ultimately going to take care of everything?
5. Why is God’s forgiveness of us so crucial to our forgiveness of others?
6. Can we forgive somebody without being able to be around them?  Do you have people like that in your life?
7. Bell says that true forgiveness is being able to wish the other well.  How might that understanding impact your ability to forgive someone who has wronged you?
8. Do you believe forgiveness is really more about the one forgiving than the one being forgiven?  Does that view on forgiveness make it easier to forgive?
9. Forgiving is an action, it’s something you do!  Are there people you need to forgive?  If you never get the chance to make amends, what kinds of regrets will you have?