When Other People's Mistakes Become Our Grudges

 

One of the wisest verses in the Bible is this:

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Ephesians 4:32 

We all know forgiveness is called for in the Christian life. So why does un-forgiveness thrive among so many of us?

I think it’s because we might not understand our hardened hearts, or that they are even hardened in the first place!

C.S. Lewis has a terrific quote:

“When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not when you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them.” Mere Christianity

When we take offense—a reaction to someone else’s mistake—we check ourselves completely out of the equation of having to forgive (not seeing our own mistake in our arithmetic because our mind is not working properly; it’s operating under the control and passion of offense”).

Under these conditions, we will never forgive anyone for their mistake because we don’t see it as a mistake, but as an offense. And in our dysfunctional mind, offenses demand apologies, not forgiveness!

This harboring of offense leads to resentment and holding a grudge. The mind continues to not operate properly, and has now taken the mistake of the other person and turned it into an even greater mistake by ourselves. What could have been addressed or graciously overlooked now takes on a life of its own into quite evil territory—territory we would never consider ourselves to be in because of our sense of self righteousness. When we are so sure we are right, we are blinded that we could be wrong, unreasonable, petty or, alas, unforgiving. 

The second half of this entanglement is our own obliviousness to mistakes that we, ourselves, have made, that also have resulted in offense, hurt, and any number of other negative manifestations! That is the other ugly side of offense: we are so busy being offended that we forget we, too, have said dumb things, been ungrateful, forgot to be somewhere, ran late, didn’t show up at all and on and on. 

And one of the ways we can be ignorant of our own mis-steps is because the person on the receiving end showed grace instead of offense. They did not allow our mistake to turn, for them, into a grudge and a state of un-forgiveness. 

The irony with grudge-holding is that the initial mistake perpetrated will soon be outshone by the mountainous chip on one’s shoulder that takes its place, revealing the greater discrepancy in character to be that of the grudge-holder. 

It is a sign of weakness, neediness and self-involvement to only see one side of any situation: our own! To not be willing to either address something or someone, or let it go, is the pinnacle of narcissism, because it allows the narcissist ever more self-promotion.

But often, we don’t see all of this when it’s happening, just like we can’t see our error in the mathematical problem, or we don’t know we’re sleeping when we are asleep! 

The key is to jolt the mind into working properly through self-reflection founded on prayer, Scripture meditation, quietly listening to God and heeding the Spirit’s guiding feedback. 

It takes time, and may be painful, but the receiving of the truth about ourselves in the safety and love of the Lord’s arms is so much better than marching around people and circumstances wielding grudges. 

These grudges do not affirm us as we hoped they would; they only seem to pile on and separate us even more from people, often the people we love most.

And that is a mistake—not a mistake made by someone else, but a mistake made by us. And only we can own up to it in order to break the pattern, arrive at forgiveness and begin working on how to maturely navigate future exchanges and interactions with the properly functioning mind of Christ, who will generously lead us into all truth and wisdom when we ask. 

Copyright Barb Harwood

Christ Righteousness, or Fruit of Christ Righteousness?

 

How deep does our righteousness go?

Is it a “kindness” sign in our yard? Or an “everyone is welcome” mat outside our door?

And what happens when someone coming from an opposing ideological viewpoint walks past our yard, or stands on our welcome mat, are they truly viewed “kindly?” Are they sincerely and open-mindedly “welcomed?”

I often chuckle when people with the word “LOVE” on their shirt walk past me without a smile or a “hello.” It's as if the shirt has lobbed its warmth my way, so therefore the person wearing it does not have to! 

For Christians who dearly claim Christ, is our equivalent the sending of a Bible verse on a greeting card, announcing “Jesus loves you” on a bumper sticker or quoting Scripture to friends? Do these things check the righteousness box?

Superficiality thrives on the yard placards, apple laptop stickers and flags we plant, adorn and drape around ourselves. But is it only skin deep? Or does it seep into our very blood vessels as it is sourced from the Spirit and pumped from our heart, to our brain, to our soul? 

Our spirit is already aware of Christ’s righteousness, because our Spirit is Christ. 

But our body, heart, thinking-mind and soul are up for grabs. 

The state of each one of those entities can ideally be led by God, but only if we make the choice for him to lead, and decide that we will, indeed, follow. 

This is not “blind submission” as many people love to characterize the Christian life. It is discernment of the Spirit in us, knowing that the primary source of “blind submission” is our very own “blind ambition” to follow our pride, which always feels so right—so righteous!

Which brings me back to my point: If we say we love and desire the righteousness of Christ, have we ever sat down to contemplate exactly what that means?

For some, it means they love his righteousness, and thus, adopt an attitude of that righteousness in themselves. They say and believe all the right things. They’ve got the righteousness of Christ clearly in their sights and feel confident in its demarcation, not only for their own life, but the lives of others—even society, otherwise known as “culture.”

What stopped me in my tracks the other day is this: Fruit. What, and where, is the fruit of all of this knowing of Christ’s righteousness?

For all the love we like to throw around on bumper stickers and yard signs, is love the sincere outcome of our mentally buying into Christ’s righteousness? 

In other words, do we stand confident in our concept of Christian righteousness while at the same time harbor unforgiveness? Is there a person against we hold a hardened heart? Does our sense of self-righteousness muddy the waters of Christ’s righteousness at those times? Do we confuse the two? 

What about political opponents: leaders, neighbors, family members, co-workers, school board members with whom we vehemently disagree? Do we talk disparagingly about them? Do we gossip? Are we sarcastic (thinking we’re witty and funny) about their “stupidity?” 

This is what I think of when I read 1 Corinthians 13:1: 

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angles, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” 

The main component, I believe, of Christ’s righteousness is grace. Can we, do we, export grace? 

Grace does not mean we have to agree. In fact, grace shines even brighter when it occurs between folks who do not agree! 

Grace does not constantly look in the rearview mirror, harping about past wrongs and real or imagined slights. Grace gets over stuff and knows a healthy thick skin. 

Grace doesn’t take itself too seriously. That is one sure sign of grace! 

A sure sign of self-righteousness (lack of grace) is self-seriousness.

That’s because self loves to delude self away from grace. Self loves to nurse old wounds, maintain a long memory and have it all add up to superiority. And when self believes itself to be superior, Jesus is nowhere to be found. 

The righteousness of Christ, no matter how well we know it, believe it, and expect it from everyone else, amounts, really, to nothing if we don’t get, finally, to its fruit. 

We are to be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:11). 

Notice it does not say we are to be filled just with the righteousness. But we are to be filled with the fruit of that righteousness. 

In other words, live it out, don’t just wear it out on a t-shirt, placard, yard flag or coffee mug!

Galatians 5:22-24 sums it up nicely for us:

“But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

Jesus sent His spirit to us to live in us, not to be an identity but to be a life lived out under God’s great guidance. The Spirit will never let us down, as many of us who have ever ignored the Spirit’s wise counsel can attest!! 

My prayer is to not let my self-righteousness believe itself to be Christ’s righteousness, and that I eliminate mere lip service to genuine Christ righteousness through the actual living of it out—so that it buds, blooms and ultimately bears fruit!

copyright Barb Harwood