Spiritual Offender #1

Resentment is the "number one" offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. - Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 64

I'm finally feeling well enough to resume some blogging, so I want to continue the thread that I started last post. Thanks for all prayers and encouragement.

First and foremost I want to carefully define what I believe the book means by "resentment."  There are a number of dictionary definitions which don't fully convey it's intended meaning here. Resentment is not the same thing as anger or being indignant. Resentment persists. It lives in the past and might best be defined as stale anger. The book nowhere tells us we should never be angry. Anger is a basic human emotion that we experience quite involuntarily (usually) when something is done to wrong us or those we love. It's usually justified to a degree, although there are many of us who get a perverse delight in being handed the moral high ground and so go looking for injury.

So when I say "stale anger" I am referring to anger over a day old.

In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. - Ephesians 4:26 New International Version (NIV)

We experience resentment in part as old, unresolved anger, but also as a feeling of moral superiority. In fact, it is in this sense that we can find a way out, a way we can offer forgiveness.

When Jesus spoke of forgiveness He usually used a financial analogy, so we'll do so here. If you borrow $1000 from me, there is a debt created. You, the debtor, have an obligation to me, the creditor, to repay the loan. Now suppose you come to me to repay the loan and I tell you that you don't owe me anything. And no matter how hard you try, you just can't convince me otherwise. Where did the debt exist previously? Clearly in the mind of the creditor, the one owed. It doesn't mean you didn't borrow the money, it doesn't mean you never owed me. I can simply choose to "forgive" the debt.

So it is when someone wrongs us. A moral "debt" is created and we feel that person "owes" us something. We become moral creditors. And just as in the previous example, we can choose to "forgive" the moral debt. We're not saying it didn't happen, we're not saying it was acceptable, we're simply saying that it no longer applies. Forgiveness itself is not a feeling. You don't have to "feel" forgiving to forgive. What happens when you forgive is more powerful than that: you no longer have the resentment.

I have tried in vain to find a distinction between unforgiveness and resentment. I don't think there is one. So the cure for "stale anger" is to let go of it so it can drift into the Past. And that is why I made such a big deal about the Present. If we are going to learn to live there, we can't be held back by the Past. Our Future will never brighten so long as we hold onto the things that are anchoring us there.