Anger and Frustration…and Unforgiveness
“Now hear me, I am not saying that what was done to you is small. I’m not saying that the abuse or betrayal or offense was little. What others have done to you is awful. But your sin and rebellion has been against an infinite, holy, all-powerful creator. Any sin against God is always bigger than any sin against another human.” – Pastor Tony Walliser
Read Matthew 18:21-35
Anger and Frustration… and Unforgiveness
When he began to settle accounts, one who owed ten thousand talents was brought before him. Since he did not have the money to pay it back, his master commanded that he, his wife, his children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt. “At this, the servant fell facedown before him and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you everything.’ Then the master of that servant had compassion, released him, and forgave him the loan.
– Matthew 18:22-27
An open letter to one who has been wronged… one who sometimes struggles with frustration, anger and forgiveness… just like many of us do:
It’s always hard to keep our emotions in check when we feel like we or, worse yet, those closest to us (our kids or spouse) have been wronged.
Deep lying anger is tough. It can be buried to the point where we think we have it conquered or at least under control. But it’s kind of like an onion. The emotion is buried just below the onion’s surface – sometimes deeper than other times. So, when something finally peels the onion skin back, that exposed emotion is raw and smells, even to the point of tears – like an onion… raw like an exposed nerve.
The good thing is that God is bigger than our unforgiveness, the emotion we carry and our ability to control it. And in our moments of weakness when we struggle or even fall, He is there to pick us up and dust us off and get us back in the game (like any loving father would).
Even though we are Christians and strive to live the life Christ would have us live, we still are human and thus not perfect. Most times it is in the moments that we fall or fail that the world around us can see Christ in us – in how we are forgiven, in how we respond to that fall, to how we get back in the game… even in how we forgive the one who may have done us wrong.
As men, it’s even harder for us to forgive… to turn off the emotion or keep it in check. Our competitive juices fire up and we’re ready for battle. That’s how we were made and trained. The problem is, now we have no real release for that emotion or energy, and thus it sits and churns under the skin just wanting to be released.
As believers, we also know about how grace and forgiveness work… how Jesus died on the cross to forgive us, and show us grace and mercy. And to forgive others as we have been forgiven. The hard part is for us to get to the point in our walk where we give grace and forgiveness to those who we feel have wronged us, to those who are like us – sinners saved by grace.
And, we have to get to the point where we can forgive ourselves… like Jesus has forgiven us.
The bottom line is this: you are just like the rest of us, and that’s what we love about you.
Accept forgiveness. Give forgiveness. Get back in the game.
“Unforgiveness leads to a personal prison…” – Pastor Tony Walliser
“… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith.”
– Romans 3:23-25 ESV