Resentment kills a fool, and envy slays the simple. —Job 5:2
Saturday evening on a Kairos Prison Ministry weekend is a powerful time. That morning, all attendees—residents and volunteers—receive a slip of paper and are encouraged to write down the names of those we need to forgive. No one except the individual will ever see these names; this is a private encounter between self and God. As we gather in the chapel at day’s end, we drop our forgiveness lists into water and watch them instantly vanish, for the paper on which we write the names is dissolvable. The moment is externally symbolic and internally liberating, and the relief that follows forgiveness is palpable. Freedom feels good.
Does this mean old feelings of hurt and anger never fester and surface again? Not at all. As one who has had to forgive some knuckleheads over and over again, I can attest that old feelings return. In fact, though “resentment” has come to connote holding a grudge in anger or pain, the literal origin of the word is to “feel again.” How descriptive! And how diagnostic! Isn’t this what we do—feel the same anger, disappointment, or pain again and again, refusing to let it go? A friend recently learned that someone had been holding him in resentment for close to ten years, and my friend didn’t even know it until someone else told him! So who did resentment hurt for so long?
When our son was a boy, Peggy would occasionally teach him, “Emotions are good, but you cannot let them master you; we must learn to manage them.” This is a decision, as Paul likewise exhorts us, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another . . .”1 But how can I relinquish my pain and release my grudge? Paul continues, “. . . as God in Christ forgave you.”2 Therein lies the key: we have sinned against God exponentially more than any one individual has ever offended us. Our sin against God is immeasurable, but others’ wrongs against us are finite. Then as God in Christ forgives us much, so we as people forgiven in Christ are free to forgive others for comparatively little. And in doing so, we overcome that silent “killer of fools”—resentment.3
And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.4 —Jesus, to His disciples
Father, thank You for forgiving me my trespasses. May I flourish in Your forgiveness to the point of overflowing it to those who have trespassed against me. In Christ I pray. Amen.
1 Ephesians 4:31-32 ESV
2 Ephesians 4:32 ESV
3 Job 5:2 ESV
4 Mark 11:25 NIV
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Paul Nordman—Author 