Cooling the heels of a grudge

It's hot. For a lot of us, when the days are this hot, the traffic lights seem to be a lot longer and checkout lines a lot slower. These are the days when ice cream sales and tempers are high. Often when tempers flare we say things we don't mean and do things we don't intend to do, cross those we love and disregard those we don't. The dog days of summer often present a unique opportunity to practice the art of forgiveness.

Jesus was once asked, "How many times must I forgive?" He responded the only way he could: By piercing through the question to the heart of the issue. The one who asked these questions was not really interested in engaging in the act of forgiving; rather, they were looking for a reason to hold onto whatever grudge they had. They were not interested in forgiving but looking for authoritative support that they were wronged and had every right to be bitter and angry.

When our motivation is based on clinging to how we have been wronged, our relationships with God, with ourselves and with others suffer. We never move past the superficiality of pleasantries to the depths of connectedness we are really seeking. We are always guarded with others. The focus on having been wronged and needing our anger to be justified slowly eats away at us.

One day, an elderly woman went to visit her attorney to make some changes to her will. When they were nearly complete she said, "One more thing. I want my will to state that no men will serve as pallbearers at my funeral."

The attorney wrote her request down but, thinking it was odd, simply asked "Why?" She replied, "Because no man took me out when I was alive, they're not going to take me out when I'm dead."

This woman was taking her grudge with her to the grave. Who knows what depths of God-honoring relationships she could have had if this grudge was not consuming her.

In one brief afternoon conversation Jesus, the source of forgiveness, reminds us that the ability and willingness to forgive is more important than being consumed by the insistence that you have been wronged.

Rob Hurtgen is a husband, father and serves as the associate pastor at the First Baptist Church in Jackson.