Forgiveness Guards Against Grudges Becoming Glooms

The troubled fellow reluctantly went to see a psychologist. He wasn’t the sharpest tack in the drawer. Trying the pinpoint the cause of the man’s anger, the therapist asked, “Do you have a grudge?” To which the man replied, “Yeah. It’s big enough for two cars, but we use half of it for storage.” 

 

Lots of people have grudges (as well as garages). We park our sedans and SUVs in garages, but grudges seem to park themselves in our thoughts and hearts. They’re easy to justify in our minds: “He did this.” “She said that.” “My boss was unfair.” “I deserved a better grade.”

 

Do your grudges hold you prisoner,
like this old jail in Tullahoma, Tenn.?

The problem is, grudges hurt us as much as the persons we hold them against. Often they hurt us more, because the “grudgees” might not know about the hurting, the hard feelings we harbor toward them, or may not even care. It’s the equivalent of being mad at someone and punching ourselves in the face to spite them.

Beyond that, nursing grudges can have toxic affects on our attitudes and outlooks on life. The late devotional writer Selwyn Hughes observed, “we must determine to forgive everyone who hurts us and refuse to nurse a grudge. Grudges become glooms…. A grudge or a resentment is sand in the machinery of living.”

 

I like that analogy. Even non-mechanical folks like me know that to keep parts of machines meshing properly they need to be oiled or greased. Putting sand in them instead will wreck a perfectly good machine in no time.

 

In our defense we want to argue, “But you don’t know what they’ve done! You don’t know how much they’ve hurt me (or my family, or my friends). How can I forgive them? I don’t want to forgive them!”

 

While those complaints are understandable, they’re not helpful. Because holding onto grudges often results in a root of bitterness in our hearts, with its roots growing deeper every day. Grudges have turned many a once-pleasant and happy person into a miserable wretch.

 

The Scriptures have much to say about this issue and the problem of festering bitterness. Hebrews 12:15 admonishes, “See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”

 

Here we find two very important phrases – the “grace of God,” and the “bitter root.” They are oxymorons – contradictions in terms. Because God’s grace allows absolutely no room for bitterness. If anyone had a right for bitterness, to withhold forgiveness, it was God. And yet we read, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

 

No one has sinned against us nearly as much as we have sinned against the Lord. He had no obligation at all to forgive us for our many sins. Nevertheless, we have the assurance of the verse that’s so familiar we’re tempted to disregard it: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

 

Someone might respond, “Yes, I believe that and have received Jesus into my life. But I still can’t let go of the grudge I have toward [fill in the name].” That might sound reasonable, but it also indicates a lack of appreciation for the scope and magnitude of God’s forgiveness, that no one has wronged us even a tiny fraction of the degree we’ve wronged the Lord.

 

Consider Isaiah 53:5-6 which declares, “But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.”

 

We might be thinking, “Okay, I get it. God has forgiven me for more than anyone could possibly do to me. But I still can’t let loose of this grudge, the bitterness I feel toward that other person. I’m only human.”

 

More than we can ever comprehend, the Lord understands this. But He doesn’t ask us to forgive – to release whatever grudge we’re desperately hanging onto – in our own strength. If we have been saved by God’s redeeming grace, He has given us the capacity to extend the forgiveness that seems so impossible. 

 

We could cite many Bible passages, but here are just two to consider: “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:4-5). The Lord has given us spiritual rebirth, making us new and able to exhibit His divine nature.

 

The other verse, one of my favorites, is Galatians 2:20 which declares, “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Whenever faced with a command from the Lord and my response is, “I can’t!”, He answers, “Yes, I know. But I can – and will do it through you, if you’ll let Me.”

 

So, I ask: Are you nursing a long-standing grudge, allowing a root of bitterness to poison your inner being? Are you withholding forgiveness – essentially allowing sand to bind up the machinery of your own life? Maybe today’s the day for you to release it. To use the cliché, “let go and let God.” Maybe the object of your anger doesn’t deserve forgiveness. Don’t do it for them – do it for yourself. Free yourself from the awful prison of bitterness and gloom.