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I'VE GOT TO NURSE THIS GRUDGE
BECAUSE IT'S SICK! VI
MAD ABOUT THE SUPER BOWL (9:55)
Here's one of the dumber Monday questions a radio preacher
could ask. Do you have anything to be mad about today? Besides the traffic
out there on the freeway as you're on your way to work?
Let's just go down a little list, shall we? Yesterday was the Super Bowl,
so half of all Americans are crying into their Cheerios about that stupid
play last night, that stupid fumble, that stupid interception, those stupid
referees. We're recording this a few weeks ahead of time, so I can't even
comment about what teams were involved, but it's a given that at least
49% of the country is in mourning right now.
How about this one? Eight years ago today, January 29, 1993, a brand new
president named Bill Clinton lifted the ban on gays in the military. "Don't
ask, don't tell, don't pursue" was launched exactly eight years ago
today, and that has been a source of anger to many people ever since.
Fifteen years ago yesterday . . . the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up.
Do you remember? And if you're a relative of Francis Scobee, Michael J.
Smith, Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, or Gregory Jarvis,
we would certainly understand if you still harbored some anger over faulty
O-rings or negligence on the part of NASA. If you were a student back
in 1986, sitting in a classroom listening to a wonderful teacher named
Christa McAuliffe - and then watched on TV as those plumes of white smoke
signaled her tragic death - you have a right to be mad today, 15 years
later.
Well, friend, we're studying together, all last week and now all this
week too, the issue of grudges. Resentment. Nurtured anger. I'VE GOT TO
NURSE THIS GRUDGE BECAUSE IT'S SICK! is our series title. And all of us
know that 15 years is actually a fairly short stay in ICU for some of
the grudges we've built up. Am I right?
We need to flesh out the concept that forgiveness is actually just one
thing: giving our anger to God. We don't deny our anger, we don't paper
over our anger, we don't try to talk ourselves out of our anger. We don't.
We can't. Many times, the things we're angry about, we should be angry
about. What we think a person did wrong to us, they really did. They are
in the wrong. But forgiveness - rather than being a state of "overlooking"
or sweeping it under the rug - is simply giving that entire situation
over to an all-wise, all-powerful God. A God who can and will take His
own revenge when His timing is perfect and right.
For today, as we've been doing, we want to just address one reality about
grudges and forgiveness. And here's the one for this January 29: "When
we forgive, we free ourselves from the bitter ties that bind us to the
one who hurt us." That's actually a direct quote from a book entitled
A Man Named Dave, authored by Dave Pelzer. We picked it up from a Reader's
Digest submission by Claire Frazier-Yzaguirre in the April 2000 issue.
But listen again:
"When we forgive, we free ourselves from the bitter ties that bind
us to the one who hurt us."
Have you ever pondered the irony of that? Here's a person
who has hurt you, wounded you. And they really have. Let's acknowledge
that. In terms of the scales and balancing and all the rest, they owe
you big-time. Which, of course, is why you spend so many hours thinking
about revenge and curses and flat tires for them. You'd like to get even.
But now pile on the irony. When they've already hurt you once, and now
they're permitted to occupy your brain and steal from you maybe hours
a day - and perhaps they get to do that for 15 years - they're ripping
you off twice! For the original sin, and now again because they essentially
own you. If a person owns your brain, they own you.
I recall a line from the film critic, Roger Ebert. He was commenting about
a scene in the movie, Jerry Maguire, where Renee Zellweger and Bonnie
Hunt and a whole group of women were in a kind of 12-step program. They
would sit around and complain and dialogue and role-play about how terrible
their ex-husbands had been to them. And I'm sure there might be therapeutic
value in some such dialogues, but Ebert mentioned in his review:
"Someone should tell them that resentment is simply
letting someone else occupy your mind . . . rent-free."
That's true, isn't it? Rent-free. When you lose hours
plotting and scheming and fantasizing about what that person did to you
- and especially if your fantasizing and plotting is of the type which
never fixes anything, which is generally the case - all you're doing is
permitting that person to spin your engine. They've essentially got their
hands on the steering wheel of your life.
I remember an old anecdote - we couldn't track down where it came from,
though it reminds me of the late Dale Carnegie. But a certain person was
maneuvering through heavy traffic . . . and everyone around him was driving
like an idiot. People cut him off. People stalled their cars at red lights.
Moron pedestrians dropped their grocery bags right in front of his car.
Etc. Etc. And a passenger in the front seat was about to have a coronary
over it all. He was ready to pop a blood vessel. But the driver just calmly
continued on his journey. When the apoplectic passenger finally exploded:
"How can you stand it? I'm going nuts!", the man driving said
very quietly: "Why should I allow all these people to dictate how
I live?" In other words, why should their behaviors and actions rule
me?
It's interesting that the Bible takes a similar vein on all this. In the
book of Proverbs, King Solomon observes that our resentments often swallow
us up instead of the other person. Here's verse 17 from chapter 26:
"A man who digs a pit for others will end up falling in himself.
A man who tries to roll a stone on someone else ends up with the stone
rolled over him."
And I find the same principle enunciated in the New
Testament, where Jesus taught so powerfully about forgiveness and loving
your enemy. In the book of First Corinthians, chapter 7, Paul actually
writes about slavery . . . and this was real slavery! Men and women were
indentured, sold for life because of their own poverty sometimes. And
Paul basically says, "Don't worry about it. If you're a slave be
content - although if you can buy your freedom, certainly, go for it."
But then he tells his readers this:
"If you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior while
you were a slave, the moment you did this, your spirit was set free! .
. . Christ paid the price for each of you to be free. Don't think of yourself
as a slave."
The Message paraphase puts it this way:
"Under your new Master [Jesus] you're going to experience a marvelous
freedom you would never have dreamed of."
Now friend, if the apostle Paul - and of course, Jesus
was inspiring these wonderful words - wanted real slaves, slaves in chains,
to feel free inside because the grace of Calvary was in their hearts,
how much more should we feel free, be set free from our grudges about
someone nicking our fender in the parking lot? The Bible tells us: You
have Jesus! So you're free! Don't think of yourself as a slave . . . and
certainly not as a mental slave to that certain someone. Back in the Gospel
of John - and this is the same Message paraphrase, an incredible gift
to the Body of Christ - Jesus says it in these words:
"So if the Son sets you free, you are free through
and through." "Ye shall be free indeed," is how you might
remember the King James.
We mentioned last week that you and I might have to
tell our minds many, many times: "Move away from there! Move away
from that swamp of sinful resentment! Jesus has rescued us from there!"
And today, friend, you and I can add this extra motivation: We just plain
and simple don't want that particular person out there to own us any longer.
Jesus owns us, not them! Our minds belong to Him, not them! In fact, in
that First Corinthians chapter where Paul talks about us being free, even
if we have chains, he then adds:
"You'll experience a delightful 'enslavement to God' you would never
have dreamed of."
You know, I think with real regret about hours and even
days and weeks and months that I've lost to the enslavement of a grudge.
I let someone else run my mind, occupy it, fill it up . . . and without
giving me a dime's worth of rent. And all for what? The New York Times
had a quote by Malachy McCourt, which we got out of the Reader's Digest,
November 1998, courtesy of an Alex Witchel. This really hurts - listen:
"Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for
the other person to die."
Friend, that is such a stinger . . . and the sobering,
wonderful reality is that Jesus Christ wants to release us from that death
sentence. "I want you to have freedom," He tells us. "I
want to give you rest, give you respite from that huge, poisonous burden
of the grudge you bear. I don't want you to be mad about the Super Bowl
any more."
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