We are all hurt as we travel through life. We often hold on to those hurts. The betrayal of a friend, the infidelity of a spouse, the abuse of a parent, and on and on–things that stay with us for years after they occurred.
Some of us go through life aching and sweating, beneath a heavy backpack of grievances that weigh us down. Oddly, we keep adding to the weight of that backpack with fistful after fistful of “what he/she did to me,” and thoughts like, “I’ll never forget it. In fact, I won’t let them get away with it. I will pay them back!”
When we’re hauling around a backpack like that, we’re usually grumpy, or at the very least, difficult to be around. We’re certainly not smiling, or happy, because grudges make us inherently anxious.
How can we get over our grudges? How can we empty our backpack of all that disturbs us, and re-fill it with things that are worthwhile, things that do make us happy.
Matthew 6:25-27 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
Don’t Worry. Be Happy. Is that all it takes?
What Jesus is really talking about is Concentration on Him. Allegiance to Him. Love of Him.
We may not forget our hurts, but we can be sure that God will heal us of them by bringing good out of the evil they caused.
Backpacks of grievances harm us more than the person who is the object of our negative feelings. When we realize this, we can forgive that person. And isn’t forgiveness the key to our real happiness? Just think how it could lighten our load!
Translating a World on the Edge 