Radical Life Support

Rick is a non-traditionalist, rock-n-roll, evangelist who likes to stir things up. And Robin is a traditional, choir member, encourager who does not like to rock the boat. They come together to challenge and discuss how to live a radical life for Jesus.

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Radical Life Support

A Moe-Ment about Resentment

December 01, 2020 • Rick and Robin Moe • Episode 65

The definition of resentment is bitter indignation and displeasure at having been treated unfairly. A persistent ill-will at something regarded as wrong, an insult, or an injury. It could be an act made against you or a remark made by a person. It is a very complex multi-layered emotion mixed with disappointment, disgust, anger, hostility, envy, grievances and feelings of revenge. It is a strong emotion. A lot of people don’t want to admit that they have strong negative emotions. You might say you dislike or are annoyed with someone because those words are milder and you don’t want to admit that you actually have hate in your heart toward anyone because it is such a strong word.

Resentment is a very strong and destructive emotion. The complete opposite word for resentment is love. If you are resentful toward someone, you are not loving them. Some may think the opposite of love is hate. Hate and anger are components of resentment.

If resentment lands on you, you want to make sure you take it off quickly. Don’t let it take root. If you have resentment, you are angry because you have been treated unfairly. In general, if you have some resentment in your heart, it is going to overflow in your attitude, overflow in the decisions you make, you can be easily critical of people and in your relationships.

There is a quote from Carrie Fisher of Star Wars fame: Resentment is like drinking a poison and waiting for the other person to die. You are hurting yourself. Resentment puts you in bondage to it. It doesn’t release on its own. So what can we do to free ourselves? How do we break free from it? Rick says, no psycho-babble will get you out of it. The only thing that is going to get you out of it is Jesus. Going to him and casting all of your cares upon Him.

One thing you have to do first off is to acknowledge that you have resentment in your life. You can’t go to Jesus about it if you are in denial that you have a problem. Resentment is sin. The next thing is to think about the other person and you need to forgive them. Then, You have to decide that you are not going to harm the other person. Make a conscience decision, or then you will be the one doing the harm and you will have to ask for forgiveness.

Rick got the picture of a somebody who has a little tiny snowball. When you go out after a fresh snow, and it has warmed up a little bit, the snow that was so fresh, it gets sticky. And you take that little snowball of resentment and you start to roll it and start to play with it. What you need to do is destroy it. What you want to do is roll it up into a ball and you want to throw it as someone. Or you want to make such a big snowball or a boulder out of it that you can roll it over them.

What did Jesus do when he faced mocking and injustices? He was falsely accused. He faced all kind of things that He could have been resentful for but He wasn’t. And on the cross, He said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” He looked inside the person and understood that they didn’t even realize what they were doing but He forgave them anyways and He was treated just about as unfairly as anyone could have been treated.

So today if anyone can relate to what Rick and Robin have talked about, and you are saying that is me. You have resentment for somebody for something they did. And you may be totally right in what they did is wrong. Jesus was totally right in what He was saying about those who were killing Him and they knew it. Jesus is our example. The one who set before us what to say and how to be. He forgave us and he tells us to forgive others as He has forgiven us.

If you want to move on and move forward, forgive others who have hurt you, who have abandoned you, who have persecuted you, who have spoken falsely against you. That is what you do to live a radical life.

Rick and Robin are recording from Merritt Island, Florida, and saw their 70th rocket take off from Kennedy Space Center for this week’s A Moe-Ment with the Moe’s. The topic is resentment.

Rick says none of today’s topic is about him and Robin has been doing some reflection to see if this emotion is in her. They ask listeners to do some examination to see if they have this emotion in their hearts. Check for bitterness, begrudging, and jealousy because these are emotions associated with resentment.

If resentment lands on you, you want to make sure you take it off quickly. Don’t let it take root. If you have resentment, you are angry because you have been treated unfairly. Maybe someone has hurt you. A lot of people can be resentful of their parents and how they raised them. You could be resentful toward your parents all your life and so they never let go of it. When you have a negative emotion twirling around in yourself, it spills over into other areas of your life. You can try to hide it but you can’t.

Resent is when you have the inability to stop thinking about it. So you have been hurt and so you think about it and then you keep thinking about. You have to be careful because before long it can become a habit to think about an injury or offense that was done to you. Robin read a story about a man who found when he thought about how he was in the right and they were in the wrong, it would initially give him energy and he would start his day thinking about it. But what happened, just like any sin, it gives you a temporary high. It gives a temporary good feeling but later it leaves you empty. There is nothing about resentment that brings happiness.

Rick describes it like an endorphin of a bad feeling. Back in Rick’s late 30s and early 40s, he would take off on runs. Because he was training for a marathon.

As a runner, you couldn’t wait to do it because there was a high with that experience. And it is not at the beginning. It is somewhere into the run a ways, 1 or 2 miles. The more you run, the further into it that it takes for the endorphin to kick in. It is a feeling of pleasure. The same way with resentment and anger, you have to get into it a ways. You have to get into the feeling and action of it before that endorphin kicks in. And when it kicks in, now you feel justified, you feel like you are completely in the right, you feel like you are getting back at those you are feeling resentful of.

If you are always constantly feeding on negative emotions, those negative emotions will not develop good. They will always develop bad. It could develop into anger, unhappiness, irritability, and you could even end up in depression. It can consume you and control you.

Robin says when she thinks of someone who is elderly and they are miserably unhappy, it could be that they have been holding on to bitterness and resentment all their life, never letting it go. Instead of having a resentful behavior, they become a resentful person and it could end up being who you are.

You know people who whenever they open their mouth it is something negative. Rick said he always tries to find the positive and he tends to be a glass-full type of person. He truly wants to be a psalmist with his glass running over. But he just spent time recently, who, no matter how hard Rick tried to be positive, they always brought the conversation back to a negative. Rick is wondering how can they be negative all the time but maybe the other person is wondering how he can be so positive all the time.

How do you keep finding something good. It is what you practice because what you practice is what you get. If you practice positive, you have positive and you attract positive. Others who are positive want to be around others who are positive. Not a lot of negative people want to be around positive people. One of the reason people might not have friends is because they are so crazy negative all the time. Some people enjoy being around other negative people especially when it comes to gossip.

In general, if you have some resentment in your heart, it is going to overflow in your attitude, overflow in the decisions you make, you can be easily critical of people and in your relationships.

In marriage it is particularly destructive. Spouses can become resentful. It is extremely common. If you say you have never had resentment in your life, I challenge you especially if you have been married. Resentment in marriage maybe that you feel misunderstood, your spouse doesn’t get you. Maybe you feel your spouse is not treating you fairly. Maybe you feel your spouse is ignoring you. Maybe you feel unappreciated, that they are taking advantage of you or are not doing their fair share. Maybe a spouse is putting you down. You are having a conversation and you feel you are not being heard. All of this can develop resentment where you feel you are right and your spouse is wrong and you get into this battlefield in your marriage. It is destructive and you have to find a way to deal with any type of resentment that you might have.

Let’s say you have practiced a negative so long that it is just so normal for you. You become a negative person then instead of it being this one thing that you do. Every time Rick hears the word ‘normal.’ The trouble with normal is that it only gets worse, it doesn’t get better. You can’t stay in your normal and expect to get better. Left all alone to your own devices, it is not going to get better. If you think it is bad now, it is going to get much worse and it is going to fall apart. If your normal is resenting, hating, being distaining, distasteful, telling leud and crude jokes; if that is your normal, it will only get worse. That is our human behavior.

There is a quote from Carrie Fisher of Star Wars fame: Resentment is like drinking a poison and waiting for the other person to die. You are hurting yourself. Resentment puts you in bondage to it. It doesn’t release on its own. If you are resentful towards someone, you stay in that place. If something happened to you when you were 20 and you are still resentful about it, you are still kind of living in that 20-year old place and you don’t move on and mature from it.

Resentment could be in your job too. Let’s say your boss make a really bad decision and you resent how that decision affects your job. It is going to affect how you work in the office, how you feel about your boss, what you say about your boss. It is going to affect your attitude for sure. If there has been an injustice towards you, it is really hard not to feel justified about being angry about it.

So what can we do to free ourselves? How do we break free from it? Rick says, no psycho-babble will get you out of it. The only thing that is going to get you out of it is Jesus. Going to him and casting all of your cares upon Him. This is a care.

One thing you have to do first off is to acknowledge that you have this in your life. You can’t go to Jesus about it if you are in denial that you have a problem. Resentment is sin. If you don’t acknowledge resentment as a sin, then what do you think that you have. You may say, “Well it is just the way I am.” You can’t be in denial. You have to take a look at yourself and say what you are doing and being in this place is unhealthy for you. You admit that you have in a bad place and are truly drinking poison and hurting yourself. So the person realizes they are in a bad place and say, “help me.”

So one of the things you can do is think about the person who offended you or wounded you, and try to put yourself in their shoes. Are they a wounded person or a resentful person? What is going on with them? Why would they lash out and hurt you? Maybe it is something you don’t have control over, many times you don’t. But maybe there is something you do have control over. And what happens with resentment is that you have a tendency to lash out and then you are going to have to ask for forgiveness. If you lash out then you are the one who is being hurtful. It doesn’t do any good to do “this-for-that.” They hurt me so I am going to get them back.

What do you think about taking a look at the other person and seeing why they might have said what they said or done what they did?

Is there any way you can have a conversation about it? Rick thinks there is but so many times people start with, “we have to get together and talk.” Rick doesn’t like it when a conversation starts like that. He wishes someone would simply say, “Hey, do you have some time when we can get together and hang out? Want to do something?” Rick remembers the day when doing something was so simple, just saying, “Hey, do you want to shoot some hoops?” He thinks that the guy who invented basketball really had in mind just getting together with someone. Just throwing a ball at someone and throwing it through a hoop and while you are doing that, you are hanging out and talking and chatting. Eventually you will go beyond chatting to discussing the topic to interacting. Rick has noticed that when he gets together with people, if there is something on my mind, somehow that thing translates to their mind. It is a spirit thing. They catch it, they get it, they bring it up, and then here we go. And that is just the best. I just think you start good with friendship. Do the things that friends do. He just doesn’t think friends say, “we need to get together and talk.” Then that is the last thing you want to do. When he hears those words and tone, he groans.

Robin asks what Rick would advice if it is your parents that you are resentful of how they raised you. Rick says the same thing. He would ask his dad if he wanted to go fishing. Start with that. Robin says it is hard to approach a difficult topic. Rick says he didn’t say it would be easy or that it would be fun. He thinks it sure would be productive to start with your relationship and spend time together.

Rick further explains that when you literally talk about anything, if you don’t have a relationship with someone and you hate them, it is because you don’t have a relationship with them. Resentment isn’t love. If you don’t love someone, you don’t want to hang out with them. Someone has to start the process back.

The first place to start is though, maybe before the conversation so the order is wrong. The first place to start is to think about the other person and you need to forgive them. You don’t even have to say it to them right now. Maybe they don’t even know you resent them. You especially shouldn’t say it to someone who doesn’t know what is going on. This is between you and God. This is for yourself. Talk it out with God because you are the one who is dying here with your resentment.

You have to decide that you are not going to harm the other person. Let’s say they hurt you and you are resentful but you need to make a decision that you are not going to take revenge, you are not going to go out and tell everybody. It is part of the forgiveness process. You are going to work on forgiving your parents, to forgive your spouse, to forgive your friend, or your brother or sister. But you are going to not in-kind hurt them back. I think that you need to make a conscience decision that you are not going to do that because if you do that, you are sinning. And if you do that, then you are the one who is going to have to ask for forgiveness.

You are trying to release something, get rid of something and it is bad and poisonous inside of you. And you don’t get rid of something poisonous by adding something poisonous to it. Part of the resentment process is to keep it going and if you are doing something like that, you are not stopping it. In order to stop it you have to stop rehearsing it in your head.

Rick just got the picture of a somebody who has a little tiny snowball. When you go out after a fresh snow, and it has warmed up a little bit after the sun comes out. What happens it that the snow that was so fresh, it gets sticky. And you take that little snowball of resentment and you start to roll it and start to play with it. What you need to do is destroy it. What you want to do is roll it up into a ball and you want to throw it as someone. Or you want to make such a big snowball or a boulder out of it that you can roll it over them.

One of the verses Robin wanted to share was from Genesis. The topic of resentment made Robin think of Cain and Abel. Cain was resentful towards his brother. Abel had received favor from God on his offering. Cain had not received favor from God on the offering he provided. So, he was building jealousy and resentment in his heart towards his brother and we know that it grew and grew and grew. This is what the Lord said to him. “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door. It desires to have you but you must master it.” If you have been offended, you need to catch it right away. You need to understand that it wants to come to you and it wants to attach itself to you. So, Cain made the mistake and he didn’t let it go and we know the end of the story.

A lot of times we can forgive but we don’t forget. The pain is there but if you don’t think about it all the time, you won’t be thinking about the pain all the time and you won’t be feeling the pain all the time. It is important not to go there.

One of the things that the bible says to do for someone who may be your enemy or who has done an injustice to you, you are supposed to pray for them and that is not easy. That is why it is a good think to look at the other person to see where they are coming from and how you can pray for them. What could you do so that they would not do this to another person. A lot of people lash out because they are in pain themselves and it is spilling out. We are supposed to love our enemies. If they need food, we give them food. It is just the opposite of what our natural instincts are to do.

What did Jesus do when he faced mocking and injustices? He was falsely accused. He faced all kind of things that He could have been resentful for but He wasn’t. And on the cross, He said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” He looked inside the person and understood that they didn’t even realize what they were doing but He forgave them anyways. What He did in that moment, because He was treated just about as unfairly as anyone could have been treated and He was perfect and even the criminals with Him acknowledged that He didn’t do anything, He forgave.

Forgiveness is the antidote to go against resentment but you have to do it for yourself. Again, it always comes back to Jesus. What would Jesus do? What Jesus did is our example for what we should do.

So today if anyone can relate to what Rick and Robin have talked about, and you are saying that is me. You have resentment, distain, and malice in your heart or hate for somebody for something they did. And you may be totally right in what they did is wrong. Jesus was totally right in what He was saying about those who were killing Him. He was totally right that they were murdering Him and they knew it. He said forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing. Jesus is our example. The one who set before us what to say and how to be. He forgave us and he tells us to forgive others as He has forgiven us. That is how we are to forgive others who have murdered us because we might feel like we have been murdered. You feel ignored and abandoned and it hurts.

But you can let it go. It is proven, people have moved on. If you want to move on and move forward, if you want to live a radical life like Jesus did. Forgive others who have hurt you, who have abandoned you, who have persecuted you, who have spoken falsely against you. That is what you do to live a radical life.