My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.
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RESENTMENT AND FORGIVENESS (Part II)
By Hieromonk Damascene
Playing God
Often anger is evoked in us because of pride. This again is a function of our fallen nature: that part of us that wants to be God. As would-be gods, we want to be in control, we want things to go our way. When things don't go our way, when other people don't follow our lead and go along with our program, we get angry. This leads us to judge others. Judging others is one way of playing God.
God is King, and He is Judge. Of course, it's best to be a King. Therefore, in trying to play God, our ego, first of all, tries to get above others and above life itself by playing King. We can try to be King in many ways. It may be by trying to run the show and get out own way. It may be by seeking acceptance, approval, praise, respect, popularity, earthly security, or an important position. It may be through our achievements and abilities, which are used toward ultimately selfish ends. It may be through vanity over our looks, our intellect, and so on.
Even if we were to have the world at our feet all the time, and thus confirm our King-status in our own mind, we would eventually feel conflict - for we're not mean to be King. You can see this vividly in the lives of celebrities, many of whom, having risen to the "top" in the eyes of the world, are filled with inward conflict.
Most of us, however, find it impossible to play King all the time. The world is not at our feet. We try so hard to get our own way and make things work out exactly as we want, but it just doesn't happen that way. People don't want to cooperate with our own way of doing things. We don't get enough of the respect and admiration we need in order to keep up the illusion of our Kingship. On the contrary, we often express the exact opposite: rudeness, disrespect, neglect, abandonment, injustice.
What is the ego--our fallen nature--to do in this case? How can it still play God? How else than by judgment? As we said, God is King and He is Judge. When we can't be King, we take the loser's way of playing God: we become the judge. For a time it feels great! Other people and the circumstances of our life made us feel less like a god; they have hurt and humiliated us. But we can still be a god in our own mind by judging!
Judgment brings with it an exhilaration of false power. Its energy comes from the wrong, prideful use of our incensive power. But, like playing King, playing Judge eventually leads to inward conflict. If we are setting ourselves in God's place, our soul cannot fulfill its original purpose of worshiping, serving and loving God. Thus, each time we judge, we're placing a barrier between ourselves and God. A wall immediately goes up.
Judgment brings with it an exhilaration of false power. Its energy comes from the wrong, prideful use of our incensive power. But, like playing King, playing Judge eventually leads to the inward conflict. If we are setting ourselves up in God's place, our soul cannot fulfill its original purpose of worshipping, serving and loving God. Thus, each time we judge, we are placing a barrier between ourselves and God. A wall immediately goes up.
Resentment
If left unchecked, anger and judgment will pass into what the Holy Fathers call "secret anger," "remembrance of wrongs," or "resentment."
Resentment-prolonged anger--is deadly to the soul. Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk says: "Just as fire, if it is not extinguished quickly, will swallow many houses, so anger if it is not stopped right away will do great harm and will cause many troubles." The Holy Apostle Paul tells us: do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil" (Ephesians 4:26-7). "If we take Saint Paul's saying literally, writes Saint John Cassian, "it does not permit us to keep our anger even until sunset." What then shall we say about those who, because of the harshness and fury of their impassionate state, not only maintain their anger until the setting of this day's sun but prolonged it for many days? Or about others who do not express their anger, but keep silent and increase the poison of their anger to their own destruction? They are unaware that we must avoid anger not only in what we do but also in our thoughts; otherwise, our mind will be darkened by our anger, cut off from the light of spiritual knowledge and discrimination, and deprived of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Why is resentment such a deadly sin? The Holy Scripture tells us that God is love. Therefore, explains the Russian Holy Father Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov, "resentment or rejection of love is rejection of God. God withdraws from a resentful person, deprives him of His Grace, and gives him up to spiritual death unless the person repents in good time so as to be healed of that deadly moral poison, resentment."
If for whatever reason we do not forgive someone and hold on our anger, it will truly be to our own destruction. It can poison our entire lives, make us the captives of the devil, and eventually it will prevent us from entering the Kingdom of Heaven. To help us not to lose our salvation due to resentment, God allows us to feel inward conflict. This inward conflict helps us to become aware of the fatal danger of the malady of resentment.
The inward conflict may take different forms. We may feel weighed down, unable to breathe lightly or freely, as if we are captives. We may experience irrational fear, commonly known as anxiety. We may become susceptible to physical ailments. In most cases, we will feel an inward emptiness. That emptiness comes from the fact that by holding onto our anger and judgment, we have separated ourselves from God. We no longer have His Grace. His Life, inside of us, and without that we are just hollow vessels.
Our spiritual emptiness may express itself in a generally dissatisfied and cynical attitude, in which we are always attracted to negative thoughts and words about others. We may try to fill the void with drugs or the excessive use of alcohol. Interestingly, Alcoholics Anonymous "Big Book," says: "Resentment is the 'number one' offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stems all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally ill, but we have also been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.
Sometimes our resentment hurts the person we are resenting, sometimes it does not. However, in either case we gain nothing, we only lose, for in either case we are the ones who are hurt the most. Let us say someone has actually wronged us. If that person repents, he will be forgiven by God. But if we hold onto our anger, we will not be forgiven and will suffer the consequences." (Source: Orthodox Christian Information Center)
(To be continued)
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" - Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George