Victory over resentment

Recently, when I felt that I had been treated unfairly, I was fuming to a friend that I felt justified in responding with harsh words. My friend alerted me to the fact that resentment doesn’t bring healing and that in order to progress, I needed to let it go. 

My friend’s identification of my response as resentment got me to thinking and praying. Although I was still feeling justified in my words, I was inspired to search Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy to see what she said about resentment. I found one use of that word. She writes: “Judas had the world’s weapons. Jesus had not one of them, and chose not the world’s means of defence. ‘He opened not his mouth.’ The great demonstrator of Truth and Love was silent before envy and hate. Peter would have smitten the enemies of his Master, but Jesus forbade him, thus rebuking resentment or animal courage. He said: ‘Put up thy sword’ ” (p. 48).

It was a healing moment for me. I thought: “Wow, resentment isn’t this little thing I can let linger in thought. And no matter what was said or done to me, I want no part of it.”

Love is actually the only Mind and the only motivator in God’s spiritual creation.

This healing moment was rooted in the fact that God is Love and that man as God’s image reflects divine Love, which has no taint of animosity. It was an outcome of the truth that Love is actually the only Mind and the only motivator in God’s spiritual creation. In infinite Love there is no resentment or cause for resentment. Man (including all of us in our real nature) isn’t truly an animal mortal reacting to other mortals, but a spiritual idea, the very expression of Love, incapable of being injured. Therefore, there is nothing to resent. Such spiritual truths underlie our ability to express love and gentleness in daily experience, to silence aggressive impulses, to get beyond the personal sense of resentment, and to see ourselves reflecting the infinite and eternal love of God.

I found through this awakening that the antidote to animal courage is to exercise moral courage, and this is a natural result of coming to understand—and identify—ourselves spiritually as Love’s expression. Next to the marginal heading “Qualities of thought” Mrs. Eddy says: “Moral courage is ‘the lion of the tribe of Juda,’ the king of the mental realm. Free and fearless it roams in the forest. Undisturbed it lies in the open field, or rests in ‘green pastures, … beside the still waters.’ ” She continues: “In the figurative transmission from the divine thought to the human, diligence, promptness, and perseverance are likened to ‘the cattle upon a thousand hills.’ They carry the baggage of stern resolve, and keep pace with highest purpose. Tenderness accompanies all the might imparted by Spirit” (Science and Health, p. 514). 

Jesus was the ultimate example of moral courage. I love to think of the ever-present Christ, the divine nature Jesus so fully expressed, as the king of the mental realm. To me, that means that the influence of Christ, always present in human thought to heal and save, is supreme over thoughts that would aggressively argue for the normalcy of animality. Acknowledging the might of this lion of moral courage makes it easier to keep my thought aligned with the Christ. 

The moral demand and uniting power of loving our neighbor is at the very heart of Jesus’ teachings. It’s an essential aspect of being Christlike, bringing peace and harmony to our thoughts and activities. But it does take perseverance for us to “keep pace with highest purpose.” Keeping guard over every thought is a full-time activity. Realizing through prayer the infinite nature and omnipotence of the Mind that is Love is our protection from the invasion of any thought unlike God. 

The pairing of tenderness and might may not at first be an obvious connection. But as I’ve thought more about those qualities, the pairing seems very appropriate. They both express aspects of the divine character. Aligning our thought with the tenderness of divine Love dissolves animal tendencies expressed in resentment, and the might of Spirit provides the strength to be persistent in our efforts. 

The moral demand and uniting power of loving our neighbor is at the very heart of Jesus’ teachings. 

God’s loving messages are peace-giving. Thoughts that would encourage us to respond resentfully in an aggressive manner are not of God. We can reject these as impostors. They are only suggestions of what St. Paul termed “the carnal mind” (Romans 8:7), and are neither worthy of nor related to the child of God. They have no true existence, because God is the only Mind. 

It’s so reassuring to know that as children of God we are not carnal, animalistic. There’s no destructive, animal nature present in God’s spiritual creation. Love is All. And we are not inherently resentful, because our true and only being is the immortal idea of divine Love. Man is Love’s loved and loving likeness, expressing the tenderness of Love and the might of Spirit. Jesus knew that Love’s power is the only power and that the best way to defeat evil is through divine power, not animal reaction. 

Our prayers should be filled with gentleness and love, even as they reflect the power of Spirit. Mary Baker Eddy once said: “We should overcome evil with good; we should not be aggressive with the world in our mental work, else we would have to meet and master that aggressive thought turned on us. It would not know what our effort was but would resist it, and be worse” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Vol. II, p. 324). 

This thought of not being aggressive reminds me of Hymn 315 from the Christian Science Hymnal. The first verse says:

This task of watching our thought and being sure to express the love that is God-derived, the love that characterizes our real nature, could seem overwhelming if it were on us to do this by ourselves. But we’re not alone. The love that heals isn’t a personal sense of love. It isn’t something we have to drum up in a sufficient amount in order to overcome resentment and hate. Rather, it’s the natural, God-inspired reflecting of His infinite and eternal love. Our job is to let God’s love be expressed through us, to yield to divine Love. I like to think of it as reflecting the love that God has for an individual—and for everyone. This love blesses all who are touched by it.

It is very reassuring to know that, as Mrs. Eddy writes, “He that touches the hem of Christ’s robe and masters his mortal beliefs, animality, and hate, rejoices in the proof of healing,—in a sweet and certain sense that God is Love” (Science and Health, p. 569).

Now it seems more natural for me to speak with gentleness and love. If there’s an adverse situation that might, in the past, have brought forth resentment, I know it’s a call for gentle, loving prayer. My prayers are more peaceful now, with wonderful, healing results. When we let Love flood our thoughts with compassion, gentleness, and grace, this radiates to bless all of humanity.