TO FILL A LITTLE SPACE

If you are bitter about anything, or toward someone, everything you say or do will be contaminated by that unhealthy condition. It can destroy your life, while poisoning many others around you!

The past is long gone to keep you as prisoner to prior, ugly events and experiences. Don’t surrender yourself to any grip it may still attempt to have over you! You have the choice, and the power to be free!

Resentments have an expiration date which must be observed; otherwise the bondage forced upon you will be not only toxic, but lethal as well. The Bible is emphatic on the issue: “Be angry and sin not; let not the sun go down upon your wrath” (Ephesians 4:26). Persisting in bitterness is utter folly; it only results in rottenness and corrosion inside you, leading to certain death!

Are you turning fresh, new pages in your life? Have you said “good-bye” to your past? Are you creating a better tomorrow through the attitudes you display today? Don’t allow mediocrity to confine you to things as they are; strive toward a life which can be salutary and, by God’s grace may become so, positively affecting others around you.

Martin Thornton wisely reminds us that “Jesus did not offer life a little more bearable, he promised life more abundant.” Why miss His best? And that will happen repeatedly to the extent that you hold grudges, retain bitterness, and conform yourself to negativity, as if that could ever be your best “comfort zone” in life.

If you allow grudges, resentment and bitterness to become your favorite pets, they will gradually grow, and literally devour you! Any resentment left untouched and untreated, leads to present hostilities, as we see it happening with nations, families, and individuals.

Someone has intimated that “vision and memory are highly selective.” Thus, if your memory is one of resentment and bitterness, inevitably your vision will be one of unproductive retaliation. That, of course, leads you nowhere; instead, it will enslave you, confining you to the captivity of perpetual, unnecessary misery, with remembrances not worth keeping!

Unhealthy, exaggerated preoccupation with past conflicts will never promote a joyous present, much less a happy future. Do not allow any bad experiences with people yesterday to rob you of promising relationships you can still develop and enjoy today.

The Bible offers many, healthy alternatives, and St. Paul, especially, admonishes: “Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19).

Author John Piper offers the constructive reminder that “the promise that frees us from an unforgiving, bitter, vengeful spirit is the promise that God will settle our accounts.” In addition, he also exhorts: “If you hold a grudge, you doubt the Judge.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 21st, 2007 at 9:12 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.