See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God,
that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and through it many
become defiled.
Hebrews
12:15
Refrain from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret—it leads only to evil.
Psalm 7.8
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and
wrangling and slander, together with all malice.
Ephesians
5:31
“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the
other person to die. ”
Carrie Fisher, Malachy McCourt
and others have used this. It evolved.
__________________________
I have often noticed
Just how we human creatures love to hold on to hate
And blame
And resentment
It is a sadly human trait
That shows up in the cautionary tale of Cain and Able
One of those early stories
That reveals, starkly who we are as human beings
Blessed children of God (Adam and Eve)
Power hungry and foolish (Also Adam and Eve)
Resentful, jealous, and violent (Cain and Able)
Ambitious and arrogant (Tower of Babel)
The problem with hate, and resentment
Those feelings that focus our enmity on others
Is that they rob us of ourselves
They consume us and blind us
And make us less
The wise (and not-so-wise) writers of the Bible
Make it pretty clear
Resentment and hate pave the path to evil
Do we dare doubt it?
This past week we “remembered” 9/11
This was indeed a horrible event
I do remember it.
I was preparing for a trip to Azerbaijan when the planes
hit the towers
And it was a long while before we were allowed to make
that trip
to work with Azeri doctors on delivering better medical
care
It hit close to home
As I was only days from boarding a plane to Washington DC
I too was angry, appalled
But over the years I have come to understand some things
How our behavior, a nation, planted the seeds of 9/11
How our arrogance and heavy-handed interference
And exploitation of that region created
Yes
Resentment and hate
This event came out of resentment and hate
And we responded in kind
And our response tore the world apart.
We responded poorly
We responded violently
We responded by believing, by embracing, lies to justify
our action
We wanted to “get even”
And so millions died.
Millions more were made homeless
We even hurt ourselves (how many Americans were killed or
damaged, permanently)
And now we still
Remember
But do we remember the right way?
Are we taking care so that no root of bitterness springs
up?
Are we refraining from anger and forsaking wrath?
Have we put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and
wrangling and slander, together with all malice?
Or are we still drinking the poison and waiting for the
other person to die?
We need to remember!
We need to remember the pain of that day
The buildings crashing,
The people dying
Those heroes making the ultimate sacrifice
Those whose lives would never be the same
But as we vilify the perpetrators
We also need to see how we as a nation planted the seeds
of hate
By our behavior
We need to remember that our leaders lied (and were
willfully misled)
We have to remember that our response was violent and
excessive
We have to remember how many innocents were killed
Because of us
We have to remember the destruction we unleashed
When we carry resentment and hate in our hearts
WE DO NOT SEE THE OTHER CLEARLY
AND WE DO NOT SEE OURSELVES
We do not see their humanity, their pain
We do not see our culpability
Our world is being torn apart by hate and resentment
Our nation is being torn apart by hate and resentment
And into the winds of hate
Jesus comes singing love
Living Love
Jesus comes preaching forgiveness
And entrusting us with the ministry
Not of vengeance
But of reconciliation
Always, reconciliation
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to
himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was
reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them,
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors
for Christ, God making his appeal through us (2 Corinthians 5)
Every day I see the power of resentment and hate
Every single day
It leads only to evil
To abusive politics
To guns
To lies and graft
To oppression and death
To vengeance
Every day I see the power of resentment and hate
Today
I would like to see the power of love
Today I would like to practice forgiveness
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