Editorial July 13, 1992 Issue

Never the victim of resentment

William E. Moody

A close friend of mine once lost her job because of resentment. It wasn't anything she had felt toward her co-workers. She was happy to have her job, and as a new employee she had advanced quickly. Yet some of her fellow employees resisted her accomplishments, and their resentment had acted like a corrosive poison in the atmosphere of the workplace. When she was pushed out, she felt victimized and desperate. She needed to prove for herself that she was still worthy, that she couldn't be unjustly deprived of what is genuinely good by the thoughts or actions of others, despite what had happened. How did she gain her freedom? Through prayer and striving to hold only Christly love in her own heart. It wasn't easy; but there was steady spiritual progress, and her life moved forward in a new career.

Resentment certainly seems like a poison. It would try to corrode any semblance of goodwill. It would work to turn neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother, church member against church member, co-worker against co-worker, even nation against nation. But this poison always has an antidote that can be found in prayer and in our expression of the pure, unselfish, intelligent, and forgiving action of divine Love. Resentment is never healed by the determined effort of human will to pass judgment on "who is right and who isn't" but only by our yielding to the will of God, who is always right.

Christ Jesus taught the total unacceptability of self-righteousness and resentment. And his own example demonstrated the sanctuary we can discover in the divine righteousness of God. For Jesus' followers, purely selfless love and a heart freed of all forms or shades of resentment must be the hallmark of discipleship. In the New Testament, many lessons from the Sermon on the Mount point to this Christian standard. For example, Jesus speaks of being blessed "when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." He speaks of going the extra mile when you are compelled to go only one; of turning the other cheek; of the danger of anyone being "angry with his brother without a cause"; and of the necessity of being "reconciled to thy brother" if it is remembered "that thy brother hath aught against thee." Perhaps all of this is best summed up in Jesus' timeless counsel "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." (See Matt., chap. 5).

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