The Plumbline

What kind of things are you willing to overlook in life? Someone cuts me off in traffic and I tend to just gasp a little, let my blood pressure get back to normal, and then move on. I don't find it necessary to speed up, tail them, and/or flip them a certain finger while shouting expletives my momma would have washed my mouth out for back in the day. Someone eats that last brownie you were counting on having when you settled in to watch your favorite evening show and I tend to get a little bummed because I was 'counting on it', but I don't have a hissy-fit. In all truthfulness, I will probably scour the cupboards and fridge to find an 'alternative' to that chewy, chocolate goodness. We can choose to overlook offenses or we can choose to hold onto them like our last nickel. Which do you choose most of the time? Does the 'severity' of the offense come into question? Let's be truthful here - someone eats your brownie and you can forgive pretty quickly -...

There are always going to be times when we feel like we have been 'harmed' in relationship - it is part of we humans trying to live and interact together. We won't always get our own way, nor will we be continuously satisfied with what we see in others. Part of human nature is to fail on occasion - we cannot avoid that harsh fact. It is how we respond to these failures in others that really matters - not the failure so much, but our response of heart and emotion toward the failure, and more importantly - toward the person who has failed! Don’t seek vengeance. Don’t bear a grudge; but love your neighbor as yourself, for I am Jehovah. ( Leviticus 19:18 TLB ) When we hold grudges, or 'nurse them' as some people refer to it, we are really creating a 'debt account' in which the other individual begins to 'owe us' for each offense. We are then adding 'interest' to the 'debt' owed each time we rehearse (nurse) the grudge. 'Unpaid ...