"Then the master called the servant in. `You wicked servant,' he said, `I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
Matthew18:32-34
One of the most powerful definitions of unforgiveness I have ever heard goes like this: "Unforgiveness is me drinking the poison and hoping that the person I am angry with will die."
Think about it for a moment... There are people we are still mad and resentful at who don't even know it - they may already be dead (and not even at our hand!) - and we still harbour all sorts of hate, hurt and unforgiveness in our hearts. Who's getting hurt? Not them, but us.
Jesus tells a hard-hitting parable of a servant who owed his master an obscene amount of money and was pardoned and then refused to pardon a fellow servant who owed him a teeny tiny amount.
The master hands him over to the "torturers." Selwyn Hughes and many modern psychologists make a big deal over the havoc unforgiveness can cause in our lives. When our souls are burdened with the baggage of past hurts and resentments, it leads to:
- Destructive behaviour
- Diminished mental and physical health
- Anguish (or Obliviousness) for the one we are not forgiving!
- A warped perspective of God
When we refuse to let go of past hurts, we find ourselves in the hands of the "torturers."
Is there festering rage, an inexplicably poor self-image, a sense of the world being grainy monochrome instead of colour, a constant sense of tiredness or a lingering sadness in your life?
Maybe you need to let someone go - maybe you need to release a past hurt - you may be in the hands of the torturer - maybe you need to forgive.
The worst is when we are drinking the poison of unforgiveness against ourselves...
It's time to stop the poison drinking - it's time to escape the torturer. Next week we'll look at how.
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
