Holding Grudges

Hi Everyone,

Someone who follows me on Facebook, NP, asked me to write about holding grudges so here's my take.

We've all been there.  There's that one person who has really done something wrong to us and we want to get back at them so bad we can taste it.  We dream of all the witty things we would say or how we would act given the chance and we think about how good it would feel to finally let that person have it.  I mean we deserve to get even with someone if they have done something wrong to us.  If you are a Christian you have to turn the other cheek once but after that you are out of cheeks and it's time for payback.  Now many times we don't pay the other person back we just think about it.

But even when we do pay them back, we often feel worse for what we did to them than we did before we did it.  One time I was in a movie theater with my brother and his wife.  We were in line to get popcorn and all the things you need to see a movie and there was this guy who said that my sister-in-law didn't pay for her hot dog when I knew she did.  I don't remember how it started but he said something that was kind of insulting and I didn't wait to hold a grudge, I let him have it right there.  I said some really mean stuff that cut him down to size.  Then we went into the movie theater and I felt so terribly awful for saying the things I said.  See my mom always told me that two wrongs don't make a right.  So what did I do?  I went back and found the kid and apologized profusely for my words.

So now let's deal with what happens when we hold grudges?  First of all, the real person it hurts is us.  Grudges don't normally hurt the other person because they normally don't even know about them.  But what they do to our insides is pretty bad.  They make us feel all sorts of negative emotions that really can do us harm.  If we are not careful, we can spend a lot of time mediating on all the negative stuff which is really bad for us.  

But also did you know that when we hold things against other people that it will hinder our prayers to God.  The bible tells us to forgive others so God can forgive us.  That's pretty heavy stuff.  So I can hear some of you saying, "That all sounds good but I've tried everything and I just can't let go of this grudge."  Well that's not true.  Did you know that there is a lot of power in the words we say.  When we go around saying things like I can't let go, we only make it harder to actually let go.

The answer to this lies in that hole under our mouth.  If you want to let go of a grudge, make a conscious faith decision to let go.  Then say out of your mouth, "I let go of that grudge that I have against so and so."  At that point, it's a done deal.  So what do you do three minutes later when that negative feeling starts coming up?  You say to it, "Nope I have already let go of the grudge and forgiven that person."  If you keep saying that, eventually it will become a reality in your life and you can finally be free of the grudge.  Remember, if you are a Christian, you got saved by faith.  You can let go of a grudge by faith as well.  When you do, God will help you let go.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Fear

Hello everyone,

Today's topic is fear.  It's something we see all around us and something we deal with daily.  If you ask any of my five children or possibly my wife, they might tell you that I look really scary in the morning because my hair looks so bad in the morning!  OK, all joking aside, I want to take a more serious look at fear.  Just this past week I was in a meeting with someone who told me that a little bit of fear was a good thing.  This person was trying to make a point and she was very very wrong.  Fear will kill you.  There is nothing remotely good about it.

In her example, she stated that if we don't teach children to fear their hand getting burned by a hot stove, they could get hurt.  What she should have said is that if we don't teach children to respect the heat that comes off the stove, they can get burned.  But they definitely should not fear the stove, there's nothing good that can come from fear.

Now I can already hear someone saying, "Mr. Minion, the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."  That is what the King James Bible says but what that word fear means is deep respect and reverence of the Lord.  Remember this, the Bible says that God is Love and that perfect love casts out fear.  That means that if we go near God that His love will cast out fear.  Let me put it this way.  I'm a dad and I definitely want my children to respect what I say but I certainly don't want any of my children to ever fear me.  It would hurt me to think that one of my own children was afraid of me.

I don't even think that horror movies are good for us.  Think about it.  They can desensitize us to what fear actually does.  We like to watch movies that have fear in them because most of the time there is no "real" fear that would come after us from them.  But they teach us to live with fear and that fear can be amusing.  I personally prefer comedies because I like to laugh.  The Bible says that a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.

So what about fear?  I heard a preacher say one time that the shadow of a dog never bit anyone. How often do we sit around being fearful of what might happen.  I know someone who is going back to school and this person is afraid of some things that might never happen.  This person is worrying about things before they even come up.  Now I'm not telling you to plan for things and make sure you know what to do if something happens but that is much different that worrying about it.

Earlier this week, I was in a situation at work and worried about it for two days.  The particular thing I worried about never even took place so I worried for nothing.  Worse than that, we can't stand in fear and faith at the same time so I wasn't even standing in faith while I was worrying about it.  How dumb was I?  I have recently realized that there were several areas of my life where I was worrying about things and I am making the decision to quit.  Fear is of the devil.  I am striving more and more to work with one of my wife's 2 Ts (trust and thankfulness) - trust.  When I role the cares of those things over on to the Lord, He can take them and do something about them.

Can it be that simple to stop fear.  The answer is yes.  Quit choosing to live with fear and start choosing to live with trust in God!  When fear comes, tell the devil you aren't buying and choose to walk away from it!

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Judgments

Hello everyone,

Today I want to talk about judgments.  Are they good or are they bad?  Once I had someone tell me that we should never judge anything because judgments were bad.  I responded that it seemed that we were judging judgments and that seemed bad too.  Obviously this circular thought made my head spin.  Today I was sitting at lunch with a couple of friends of mine and this subject came up again.  We should never judge people right?  Doesn't the bible tell us that we should not judge others?  Actually, that is correct.  The bible does say in Matthew 7:1 that we are to judge not lest we be judged.

So what does this mean?  Should we judge anything at all after reading this verse?  My friend at lunch today said that for every scripture in the bible, you can find some other scripture that contradicts it.  I don't think this is totally true.  I do very much believe that for every scripture in the bible we can find another one that seems to contradict it but I don't think the bible contradicts itself.  God's not schizophrenic.  He knows what He's doing when he rights something.  My friends and I were talking about a highly debated subject in Christian circles and we were talking about someone that we both knew who was connected to the subject.  My friend stated that he didn't judge this person we both know and I think that's right.  I don't judge him either.

After all, most of us who call ourselves Christians are known for being judgmental of others while not judging ourselves very well.  We seem to want to judge others in strict accordance with their actions while we want others to judge us through the eyes of grace.  In other words, we want to judge others of their sins but we don't want to deal with our own sins.  So we need to quit judging other people right?

The answer to that question is yes.  But let's look at judgments in general for a second.  I don't believe that all judgments are bad.  I think we have to take a look at our own lives and judge our own actions.  One of my friends at lunch today brought up the part of the bible where it says that we shouldn't go around trying to take the speck out of our brother's eye while we have a plank in our own and that's true but if you read the rest of that passage it says to take the plank out of your eye so you can see clearly how to take the speck out of your brothers.

Here's where I'm really going with this.  While I don't believe that we should judge other people, I do think we need to have our own sense of what is right and wrong.  Sin is sin.  I don't have to judge or define it, the Bible does that on it's own.  If someone's actions are wrong, it's OK to internally know that their actions are wrong.  But to look at that same person and say they are a bad person isn't OK.  The point I'm trying to make is that while I don't think we should judge anyone or exclude them from church for something they do that is wrong, I do think that we can acknowledge TO OURSELVES, not to them, that what they are doing isn't right.  That doesn't make them a bad person, it doesn't condemn them to hell, it shouldn't even kick them out of the church but I am tired of hearing people white wash things that God clearly says is wrong.

So if you see someone doing something that the Bible defines as sin, don't judge them personally and the vast majority of the time it's not even your place to tell them what they are doing is wrong.  But do notice that their actions don't line up with God's instructions.  Then, without looking down at them or judging them personally, take a look at yourself and see what actions in your own life are not measuring up to God's instructions.  Ask God to help you be a better Christian.

That's Another Opinion of the Minion