The godless in heart harbor resentment. Job 36:13 (NIV)
Dear heavenly Father, this one little verse is bringing big conviction this morning. Today, I confess the ease with which I can generate feelings of resentment, toward people, inanimate things, and circumstances. Whether it’s the GPS that misdirects my drive or the loud talker who interrupts my dinner; airplane delays or unreturned texts; wrinkleless shirts that wrinkle or rubbernecking drivers that drive like inquisitive snails; too much junk email or too little sunshine; overcooked steaks or being late… no matter it’s source, resentment never helps; it only robs, steals, and kills.
To harbor resentment is nothing short of harboring a felon, for resentment is bent on criminal activity: stealing peace and vandalizing sleep, robbing relationships and killing kindness, spewing toxins and murdering hope—to name a few of resentment’s crimes. There’s no greater waste of energy than resentment.
But worst of all, Father, resentment is a contradiction, a blatant misrepresentation of who you are and how you relate to us in Jesus, for if anyone has a right to hold a grudge, to keep a record of wrongs done, to rehearse and remember our sins against us, it is you.
Yet you do not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is your love for those who fear you; as far as the east is from the west, that’s how far you’ve removed our transgressions from us. You’re the Father who has compassion on us as your children (Ps. 103:10-13). You show us neither vexation of spirit nor exasperation of heart, so great is your love for us in Jesus.
So Father, by the love that sent Jesus to the cross and by the power that raised him from the dead, continue to heal and change me. I don’t want to be godless in heart but want to be grace-full in heart. I want to be free even from resenting other people’s resentment. So very Amen I pray, in Jesus’ wonderful and merciful name.
