Malice

Romans 1:17
… “The righteous will live by faith.”

Romans 1:29-30
They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents.

My end of the deal is to pray, communicate and come to terms with the people on my list and my grievances. There are 14 people on my list. The 14^th person is actually a triumvirate. My friend wants me to work on this between me and God. It does not necessarily mean I have to go to these people. In some cases, most cases, they are probably entirely unaware of how they’ve hurt me.

And there’s the first rub. When I was asked to make a list of people I had grievances against, well, I immediately wrote down the names of the people that I had malice for BECAUSE of what THEY had done to ME. That’s a cinch, isn’t it? You lied to me. You got what I wanted. You abandoned me. You’re a gossip. You neglected me. You ignored me. You didn’t listen to me. You didn’t choose me. You get all the attention.

And I missed the charge, the mission. I was to make a list of people I had grievances against. I hate you. I envy you. I say bad things about you. I gossip about you. I wish you ill. I wish you were dead. I twist the truth about you. I operate against you. I am two-faced.

Over the last several months, I have had to listen to various people, friends of friends, friends of friends of friends AND friends of friends of friends of friends talk about families separated by divorce. The number of divorces in the 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon is staggering. And you will be amazed! My “friends” are ALWAYS in the right and their ex-spouses are always evil, unfit parents on a binge with no respect for the other party and a horrible influence on the children. I am surrounded by the GOOD.

After a period of time, it gets very hard to listen to. What have YOU done wrong? What’s the other side of the story? I’m sure there must be a reason why your ex won’t let you see your children anymore and it cannot be the same in every instance. I mean, I like you, but I’ve seen the way you treat your children before…

Well, I started noticing how “good” some people seemed to be and I also started noticing how “dark” my own heart had become. And it doesn’t matter how beautiful you are on the outside, if your insides are rotten. I started looking for genuineness. Someone who didn’t present “goodness” only when they were in the presence of someone with authority but spoke ill or even evil when with the crowd. It’s frightening. I then I started wondering if I did the same thing.

I then I discovered that even those I admired, the ones in authority, who displayed goodness much of the time, also had dark inclinations when they were in safe within a small group. And I was frightened. I no longer felt safe with these people. Then I asked myself, “Are they safe with me?” Probably not.

So I need to be honest with myself. And forget about what has been done to me. Most of it was entirely unintentional. I can say that now. And deal with my own sins against these people. And let them go, so I can move on. I cannot be so critical. I cannot have such high expectations. We’re all only human.

So do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
 on the day of testing in the wilderness.
Hebrews 3:8 (ESV)

My heart has been hardened by the testing. I have quenched the Spirit. I failed. It’s time to prepare for a better showing next time.