Dealing With Resentment

Pastor Bill Farrow

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One of my real issues in life for many people is an anger problem. So many people really struggle badly with anger in its many forms. From outright rage, to flares of irritation, to burning resentment; this emotion flares and intrudes itself into their lives for more frequently than they would like. It is the flares of anger that show themselves most frequently. At times folks see them several times a day - brief flares that come and go quickly and seemly rise from nowhere and disappear to nowhere once again.

Many must also admit to occasional bouts of smoldering resentment that simply ruins their state of mind. It seems at times that they are unable to break their minds away from the chain of resentment or fear that seizes it and runs away with almost as if they had no control over it whatsoever. They get upset over an offense or a difficulty and it is very hard for them to change their train of thought away from negative, fleshly directions and back onto Godly, spiritual directions.

Certainly some, a major part, of this is a function of the long time many believers have spent in a condition of basic self-indulgence. For a very long time a large number of Christians simply did what their selves wished to do. They are not involved in terrible, vile sin. But they were not completely yielded to God either. This ''lake-warm" situation is the norm for life and it is little wonder that the carnal aspects of their lives showed themselves so easily and so frequently. Somehow, they always had the idea that they were different and that God wouldn't chasten them, or that they would get away with it. The anger and frustration was the out-working of what they knew was true over against what they were telling themselves was true. 

If we are ever to be people of God, we  must face the truth consistently and be willing to live differently because of what we  see. This will take more courage and more determination than many are sure they have. This much is true, however... we can be faithful to God today; and we must be.

The question at this point is how do we deal with this issue before God? What do we do in regard to this matter in order to see to it that we do not fall into sin in this regard any longer?

First, of course is to recognize that the bottom line is that it is indeed a sin problem for which  we, ourselves, bear responsibility. Of course there are factors that bear on the root causes and aggravating factors that have produced this condition in us. In short, there are reasons why we are angry. This is simply the truth. In point of fact, some of those reasons are very good reasons. Some are very legitimate reasons that might produce the same result in anyone.

There are reasons, but, Biblically and spiritually speaking there are no excuses. We may have legitimate human reason to be angry, and we may be, again, humanly speaking, entitled to feel and to express our anger; but we must still acknowledge and own up to the fact that the Bible proclaims that it is sinful to give vent to this freshly impulse. This is the difference between the worldly and the spiritual approach to this issue. The world maintains that an adequate and/or unavoidable cause of a thing makes the thing excusable, that it removes culpability. The Bible, though agreeing as to the cause, does not remove culpability.  Rather, the Bible asks us to assume full responsibility far the issue and undertake the task of seeing to it that is submitted to God. 

Having recognized the reality of our situation and admitted it for what it really is, we must confess it to God as sin. This, of course, involves all that true, Biblical confession involves, from agreement with God to mourning over sin, to the the change of the thinking, to the change of the intention and, hence, the resulting behavior. All of this flows from real confession which, in turn, flows from the realization of our real situation before God.