In the early years of working for the Federal Black Lung program, I had a boss that I both feared and hated. I feared him because he could end my employment on a whim, or so I thought, and hated him because of the ruthless and unfeeling way he manipulated me and everyone else who worked for him. When he ultimately got caught in embezzlement I rejoiced right along with most others who worked for him. What I did not do was try to forgive him.

Today’s culture has little use for the idea of forgiveness. Instead, the modern hero seeks revenge on the ones who did him or her wrong. Don’t get mad, get even; you’ll get yours, what goes around comes around. From Clint Eastwood to Bruce Willis to Mel Gibson, the only way you can tell the good guys from the bad is by which side of the law they’re on. Most of us look at the idea of enduring injustice, of turning the other cheek, as a sign of weakness, positively un-American.

Movies and TV programs seldom picture the effect this attitude, of revenge at all costs, has on the people involved. “See that no man render evil for evil to any man….” Like every warning and admonition in the Word of God, there’s good reason for this commandment. When we use Satan’s own weapons to fight Satan, we end up becoming like the very enemy we’re fighting. The Bible tells us repeatedly that God reserves revenge for himself, along with the act of judgment that spawns it. When we decide to wreak vengeance on our enemies, we presume on God’s authority and make ourselves gods.

Other people don’t actively seek revenge on someone; they just never forgive the wrongs committed against them. Jesus warned that, if we do not forgive others when they wrong us, the Father also will not forgive us our sins. Our unforgiveness quite literally forms a dam that blocks the flow of the Spirit in our lives. At the same time, it holds in bitterness and hatred, which can easily fester and take root. Whether we react to others who harm us with the thirst for revenge or the refusal to forgive, the result is the same. The longer the plant grows, the deeper its roots become.

The results of years of nurturing bitterness are devastating. We become incapable of experiencing the love and grace of God in any real way. Just as bad, we are incapable of showing love and compassion toward others. The good impulses the Spirit tries to nurture in us get crowded out as more and more of our being is filled with the dregs of hatred. This doesn’t have just spiritual manifestations, but physical and emotional ones as well. Arthritis, cancer, ulcers, heart disease, and other ailments are often (by no means always)associated with people who carry bitterness around inside them year after year. These tormented souls find it difficult to impossible to sustain normal relationships. They often are convinced that the world is out to get them.

In the end, unforgiveness, and the bitterness that results from it, hurt the people who nurture them far more than the objects of the hatred and venom. Often the people we refuse to forgive never even know the kind of feelings we have toward them, and may not care if they do know. They may even be long dead. One of the saddest notes in a human life is an unforgiving spirit that will not rest after death removes the object of its torment.

Many people think you have to “feel” like forgiving someone, perhaps because the wrong itself provokes such powerful emotions. Like so much of what God commands us to do, though, forgiveness is not an act of the emotions, but of the will. We forgive someone because we choose to forgive them, by making a conscious decision. We may actively seek out the person involved and seek reconciliation, which is the ideal, or visualize someone sitting in a chair opposite us, and tell him or her we forgive them for what they’ve done. Whether the person is living or dead, we can’t get on with our lives until we release to God every word and deed that caused us pain.

It has only been recently that I really turned loose of my feelings toward my old boss, though I I thought I had done that years ago. I was shocked at the vehemence of the emotions involved when I finally confronted them and turned them over to God. Though I have yet to tell him in person, and though he probably has no idea I even had such strong resentment toward him, the issue is at least settled between God and me.

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JESUS IS the Bridge Ministries

Beneath His Wings Devotionals - Vol. 1