Harboring bitterness will not change the other person, but it will sure change you – and not for the better! The heaviest thing you will ever carry is a grudge. It will make you sour and miserable to be around because your only desire will be to see the guilty party punished; especially when you or someone you love is the perceived victim. What happens is this: Fear and darkness enter the picture and convinces you it is okay to harbor resentment. After all, you are only ‘protecting yourself’ from getting hurt again, right? When that happens you dig in, justify your position and get comfortable living with resentment. That is – until it destroys you! The reason this says ‘look carefully,’ is because our bitterness has many sources: like an absentee or abusive parent we cannot forgive; a nasty divorce we keep reliving; the careless words of a friend who is not even aware of their effect; the boss who passed us up for a promotion. By harboring grudges we let bitterness live rent-free in our head!

What is the answer? Forgive before the problem becomes embedded in your emotions and starts feeding off your memories. Rehearsing old hurts drives them deeper until they take root and resist all attempts to weed them out. So Make a clean break…Forgive one another quickly. And the sooner you do it the better! Remember, there’s no emotion so deeply rooted that God’s grace cannot reach down and remove it. The question today is – are you ready to let Him help you?

Written by and used with permission from Tim Hetzner.