Resentment kills a fool. Job 5:2
Dear Lord Jesus, it’s been so hot and humid lately, and I’ve been registering that complaint entirely too many times—so much my complaining morphed into resenting. It came to a head when I canceled a bike ride, and started cursing the humidity, heat, lack of a breeze, sweat glands, even the sun. That inaugurated a pointless thirty-minute pout about which you convicted me, and let me know the weather’s not the only thing I’ve been resenting lately.
I resent having to explain and repeat myself. Why can’t everybody instantly intuit what I’m thinking? I resent grocery carts in the middle of an isle I’m in. I resent gossips, so much that I gossip to others about their gossip. I resent last minute suggestions. Why do my plans and “groove” have to be disrupted?
I resent resentful people. Why can’t they stop their whining and be more content with what they have? I resent roads that are always being repaired; drivers that delay moving four seconds after the red light turns green; birds that do their business on my windshield. I resent good grass dying and crabgrass thriving. I especially resent disproportionate suffering for people I love. Why can’t you spread “hard stuff” around a little?
Jesus, my resentment will either kill me as a fool or drive me to you for life. I choose the second option. Forgive me for fertilizing a spirit of entitlement. Forgive me for not pulling up the roots of bitterness quicker. Forgive me for demanding life in the “not yet” before the “already” is over. Forgive me for preaching the gospel with gusto to others, but with a yawn to myself. Forgive me for telling others of the sufficiency of your grace while looking for some other balm for myself.
I make no excuses or promises. Today, right now, I simply collapse upon you afresh as my wisdom, my righteousness, my holiness, and my redemption (1 Cor. 1:30). I praise you that I’m not feeling condemnation, for there is none. I praise you that I am feeling conviction, for there’s reason for plenty. So very Amen I pray, in your patient and transforming name.
