My Secondhand Grudges

I’m not really sure how I feel about God interrupting me during my peaceful morning quiet time with something important to show me. But I’m finding, as I’m on my journey to better hear God‘s voice through the day, He sneaks up on me. It happened again this week.

I was reading through the last few chapters of John covering the part of Jesus’ arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection. I was hit by something that I had never seen before.

I was reading  in John 18… Specifically where Peter denied Jesus three times. Peter has already denied Him twice and is standing by a fire, warming himself. A  slave comes up to him and says, “Didn’t I see you out there in the olive grove with Jesus?" Peter denies it… Let’s out a few cus words… then the rooster crowed.

What I had never seen before was that this slave was a relative of Malchus, the slave of the high priest who Peter had previously cut off his ear with his sword (John 18:26). Jesus healed Malchus’ ear and everything was fine. But his relative decided to take up a secondhand grudge and make sure Peter paid his dues.

You know what a secondhand grudge is don’t you? Those offenses we take up for someone else who we think was wronged in some way. My wife has a friend of hers who will tell her,  “we don’t like these people, Donna!”

Jesus said to me, “would you like me to show you the secondhand grudges you’re still holding onto?”  My first thought was to say “no”, but I knew he wouldn’t take “no” for an answer.

So… Here they came… Rolling back into my memory banks. Offenses I was carrying for my wife for my kids for my dad and mom for someone I used to know from work. For a good friend of mine from church. Some of these offenses went back for years and years. None of these people had actually hurt me in anyway, but I had decided “we don’t like these people“ and just wrote them out of my life… all because they hurt someone I loved.

Then, in God‘s loving graciousness, he dropped the verse in my mind, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you” (1 Peter 5:7). some translations replace “worries and cares” with the word “burdens“. Come to think of it these really are burdens… These secondhand grudges. We’re carrying offenses that don’t even belong to us.

I heard a preacher say once, “God doesn’t give us the grace to get over secondhand grudges“. Frankly… I don’t believe that’s true. God‘s grace is all sufficient to cover anything we are facing. if we are willing to give it to Him.

So this week, I started giving my secondhand grudges to God as they came to my mind, asking Him to take them out of my heart and mind and to give me the strength to give the secondhand offense to him in forgiveness.

Then I got stuck. I’m finding it hard to give God the offenses I’ve been carrying for my wife. especially when I see my wife reach out with love and compassion to so many people, only to have them respond to her in jealousy and falsely accuse her of her motives. I’m finding it hard because, when she hurts, I hurt. I’m sharing all of this because I understand you may have someone in your life who has deeply wounded or hurt someone you love and are trying to find that balance of forgiveness and holding someone accountable. Kinda like saying “I forgive them, but they’re gonna pay”. I’m thinking God probably doesn’t support this kind of approach to forgiveness.

So… For me, I’ve had to add another step to this whole forgiveness thing of secondhand offenses. Each time these folks come to my mind, I’m asking the Lord to give me the strength to pray for them… to give them a revelation of their true identity and to be released from their false identities, causing them fear, jealousy,  guilt and shame and the belief they are not enough. I’m even asking the father to give me the opportunity to share with them how to get rid of their false identities and to grab a hold of their true identity of who God calls them. I’m telling Jesus, “we love these people“… or maybe it’s more like, “we love these people, don’t we?…

Come to think of it… As I am writing this blog, I’m realizing this works for all offenses that come into my life.… Not just the secondhand ones. The greatest weapon we have in our arsenal is the weapon of prayer for someone who has offended us or someone we love. This is the answer to living an offense free life.

No wonder Paul admonished all of us in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to "pray without ceasing". That’s pretty much what it takes to deal with secondhand grudges.

Signing off... I've got some more praying to do... If your ears are burning, it's me praying for you...:)