Revenge Is Mine saith the Lord

Not politics

In one of The Books of Unexpected Enlightenment, Rachel Griffin is faced with trying to forgive someone who has done her family great harm.

The thing that finally helps her forgive was when she realized that if someone she loved had done the same thing, she would have forgiven him.

I, too, sometimes find that coming into sympathy with a person who has done something I object to lifts the anger and resentment or whatever the negative reaction might be. If I understand why they did that thing, or why I would do it, I find the negative emotions evaporate.

After Rachel gained sympathy with the man, what stood in the way of her final forgiveness was that she did not want to give up her hatred because it was something she shared with family and friends, and she felt like she would lose that connection to them if they were not plotting the downfall of the man who had harmed them together.

It was only when she let go of that that she was finally able to forgive him entirely.

This was based on my own experience that often what is blocking forgiveness at the end is something small or petty or quite unlike what we think is troubling us. Only when we admit this smaller thing can we move beyond it to the state of mental harmony we all desire.

Recently, I had an experience overcoming resentment towards two different people, one whom I knew and one whom I never met.

In the first case, the person had done something that I had sympathy for but which I believed had caused harm to me, personally. And the second case, the person had done many wonderful things that benefited me, but I objected to certain qualities about the person’s attitude about life.

In both cases, what helped me was trying to look at the person from God's point of view. I realized that, from God's point of view, the good qualities of the person, in both cases, would outweigh the bad qualities so much that the bad thing would be as if it was nothing. And when I saw it that way, all concern for the bad things left my thoughts, too, outweighted by the good.

The second one was particularly impressive to me, because I had felt annoyed at this person for decades, but I had never stopped to really be grateful for all the wonderful things that this person had done that benefited me personally. And I realized how silly it would look from God's point of view to put thought on the basically minor things that bothered me rather than the good.

I try not to encourage resentment, but sometimes there are things that creep into our thinking that are hard for us to overcome.

What about you? Do you have any insights and to overcoming anger, hatred, resentment? Anything that might be helpful to your fellow man?

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice (Ephesians 4:31)