Let it Go!
System theory tells us that there are (at least) three different types of people in the world in regards to stress: those who like to create it, those who like to elevate it, and those who like to dampen it.
No matter what side of the stress coin you find yourself there's one thing I know that adds to our stress level like no other: holding on to a grudge.
Coming back to systems theory for a moment, I find that grudges are not only emotionally charged, but like all charged emotions found in Systems Theory, have the power to reach out and hurt not only the person from whom they emminate, but the person for whom they are directed at. Emotions are like radio waves...we can't see them, but they are there.
Selwyn Hughes, in her devotional Everyday With Jesus makes it even clearer. She wrote: "Walter Alvarez, a medical doctor and counsellor, says: 'I often tell my patients they cannot afford to carry grudges or maintain hates. Such things can make them ill and tire them out. I once saw a man kill himself inch by inch, simply by thinking of nothing but hatred for a relative who had sued him. Within a year or two he was dead.' A grudge or a resentment is sand in the machinery of life."
So what's a soul to do who has been so wounded?
Let it go!
Grudges are toxic, dangerous, and threaten not only the spiritual life of a person, but a persons body as well. Letting it go frees the body, the mind, and the spirit.
One more example from Hughes. She writes: "I read the story of a Japanese boy, who, a few years after the Second World War had ended, entered a public speaking contest and announced his subject as 'The Sacredness of Work'. Some of the people smiled at his choice of subject, but when they herard the story behind it their smiles turned to tears. His parents and home were burned to ashes in the atomic bomb explosion at Nagasaki. He was the eldest of three surviving children, and together they knelt in the ashes of their home and prayed to know what to do. One of the children said:'I know what we can do-we can work.' So they set to work, gathering bits of tin and boards, and soon they had a little hut in which to live. They could have nursed their grudge and become gloomy; instead they forgave, forgot and went to work."
Care to be free from the pain? Let is go!
Yours for the reign of God,
Ron
No matter what side of the stress coin you find yourself there's one thing I know that adds to our stress level like no other: holding on to a grudge.
Coming back to systems theory for a moment, I find that grudges are not only emotionally charged, but like all charged emotions found in Systems Theory, have the power to reach out and hurt not only the person from whom they emminate, but the person for whom they are directed at. Emotions are like radio waves...we can't see them, but they are there.
Selwyn Hughes, in her devotional Everyday With Jesus makes it even clearer. She wrote: "Walter Alvarez, a medical doctor and counsellor, says: 'I often tell my patients they cannot afford to carry grudges or maintain hates. Such things can make them ill and tire them out. I once saw a man kill himself inch by inch, simply by thinking of nothing but hatred for a relative who had sued him. Within a year or two he was dead.' A grudge or a resentment is sand in the machinery of life."
So what's a soul to do who has been so wounded?
Let it go!
Grudges are toxic, dangerous, and threaten not only the spiritual life of a person, but a persons body as well. Letting it go frees the body, the mind, and the spirit.
One more example from Hughes. She writes: "I read the story of a Japanese boy, who, a few years after the Second World War had ended, entered a public speaking contest and announced his subject as 'The Sacredness of Work'. Some of the people smiled at his choice of subject, but when they herard the story behind it their smiles turned to tears. His parents and home were burned to ashes in the atomic bomb explosion at Nagasaki. He was the eldest of three surviving children, and together they knelt in the ashes of their home and prayed to know what to do. One of the children said:'I know what we can do-we can work.' So they set to work, gathering bits of tin and boards, and soon they had a little hut in which to live. They could have nursed their grudge and become gloomy; instead they forgave, forgot and went to work."
Care to be free from the pain? Let is go!
Yours for the reign of God,
Ron
