Can You Love Well Someone You Resent? (Part 1)

I think our own personal life experiences will affirm the fact that it is difficult to feel positively toward someone who, we believe, has wronged us. That ‘someone’ could be our spouse, parent, adult child, friend, co-worker, neighbor, the government or even God.  For example, if our spouse continually offends us in some particular way[s] and rarely apologizes for such offenses, or makes no effort to correct the offending behavior, it is not difficult, over time, to accumulate a store house filled with unforgiven or unresolved grievances.  Those grievances quench the flames in our heart of love and appreciation for our spouse. Over time some marriages grow cold this way. 

In human relationships, sometimes the person who is rather sensitive, who seeks to avoid conflict, or lacks courage to protest when wronged, is more likely to accumulate grievances than is a person who speaks up and confronts the offending person.  Thus, the timid individual, over time, may be more likely to accumulate resentments against the offender, but those accumulated grievances may one day ‘erupt’ via a volcanic response towards the offender, sometimes to the surprise of both parties! Open discussion about offenses and unmet expectations between spouses, friends, co-workers, etc., with the objective of understanding each other’s perspective, hurt, anger, disappointment, etc., appears essential to ‘clearing the deck’ of unresolved hurts. It is simply quite difficult, at least on our own, to love, respect and appreciate someone whom we resent. Often, skill training in how to ‘confront’ someone in a biblical and caring way would be very helpful. [See the link below] [https://www3.nd.edu/~pmtrc/Handouts/Speaker_Listener_with_Example.pdf

 Sometimes then, offenses and unmet expectations need to be openly addressed and confronted and with God’s help via His Spirit along with some skill training we can muster the courage to lovingly confront or address the issue with the offender.  But other times it appears that the scriptures advise us to sometimes just overlook those offenses. “Love is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered” [I Cor 13:5].  Paul appears to be saying that walking in love includes not ‘keeping track’ of offenses – ‘a wrong suffered’.  This would seem to require a mindset to guard our heart [Prov 4:23] from allowing hurts to poison our spirit, fester, accumulate, and fuel the desire to act in retaliation against the offending party. Retaliation can even be a somewhat subtle motivation and is not always expressed in some form of violent response. A loss of eagerness to help, cooperate with, or assist another person may sometimes be based upon a hidden form of retaliation driven by resentment.

The scriptures are clear that we are to forgive those who offend us: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger, and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.  Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you’ [Ephesians 4:31-32].  Malice is ill-will towards another and likely evidences a resentful spirit.  But forgiving another does not mean that we must also somehow ‘forget’ the offense.  The old saying ‘if you have not forgotten [about the offense] you have not forgiven’ is nonsense.  We cannot magically erase certain painful memories from our mind, but we can ‘take every thought captive’ [II Cor 10:5] and refuse to entertain thoughts of retaliation or revenge.  Paul says that a certain Alexander the coppersmith ‘did me much harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds’ [II Tim 4:14].  This passage shows that Paul did not ‘forget’ someone who harmed him but did not attempt to personally retaliate against that man but left the ’payback’ to the Lord. As Paul said to the believers at Rome: ‘Never pay back evil for evil to anyone…If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge beloved but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord’.  But if your enemy is hungry feed him and if he is thirsty give him a drink for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.  Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” [Rom 12: 17-21]. This passage indicates that one evidence of our having been ‘overcome’ by evil is when we retaliate against someone [our ‘enemy’] who has wronged us.

 It seems therefore, at times, we ‘confront’ our offender, based upon our concern for their welfare, and growth, as well as protecting ourselves from abuse or unfair treatment, but at other times we perhaps deflect the offense, ‘not take the offense into account’ and ‘turn the other cheek’.

Obeying the second great commandment, that of loving our neighbor, and doing good to those who mistreat us [Matt 5:39-44] is much more difficult if we have not resolved and given over to the Lord our resentments and grievances against others.  We must release and abandon our perceived ‘right’ to retaliate, withhold affection, offer a cold shoulder, etc., if we hope to grow in genuinely loving others including our ‘enemies’.  I am not for one minute suggesting that any of this is ‘natural’ or easy and it is certainly contrary to the ways of the world and even some religions. I struggle with these issues like most other people.

If a ‘resent-o-meter’ were somehow inserted into the deepest part of your or my heart, what would it reveal? Have we justified our lack of love for others via maintaining, even nurturing our list of ‘treasured’ resentments/grievances? Doing so does not work well for me. How is it working for you?

CJS