Judas Iscariot found this out the hard way. You remember the supper, which Jesus attended in the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. After supper, Mary poured a very costly bottle of perfume over the feet of Jesus; then she wiped them with her hair. Commentators say the perfume was worth about sixty dollars in American money. Did you ever own a sixty-dollar bottle of perfume? What a luxury! To Judas’ way of thinking, the money was wasted, absolutely wasted. And whoever heard of perfume being poured on a man’s feet? Besides, she had poured no perfume on Judas’ feet. So here was resentment, mixed with greed and a bit of jealousy, gnawing away at the soul of Judas, just as it gnaws at the souls of thousands today.

Resentment is our enemy! Never our friend! Have we learned to recognize his earliest appearance and bring him to defeat? A young mother came to me one day, filled to overflowing with resentment. Her four young children, she said, were simply too demanding. They took too much of her time, were tying her down. In fact, she said tearfully, she was a virtual slave to her family. She couldn’t come and go as she desired to do, for she was chained to such humdrum chores as cooking, doing the dishes, making beds, and taking care of the laundry. Self-pity was much in evidence as she insisted that life, real life, was passing her by. Well, there are probably thousands of women who would give a great deal to exchange places with her. This young mother had all the elements for domestic happiness---a better than average house, a husband who loved her and earned a very adequate salary, and four healthy, intelligent children, but resentment was spoiling her life. Her self-interest was greater than her love, and her desire for personal freedom was greater than her maternal sense of responsibility.

You remember, when the father of the Prodigal was giving a feast in thanksgiving for his son’s return, the heart of the elder brother boiled with resentment. He said to his father, “Lo, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came [note that he was not willing to call him his brother], who has devoured your living with harlots [and be had no proof for this statement], you killed for him the fatted calf!” (Luke 15:29–30) Now, that’s resentment! But who was hurt most by it? The elder brother, of course. It was his heart, his personality, his spirit, which were damaged.

Resentment is a boomerang! It may be aimed at another, but invariably it returns to its sender. I owned a boomerang when I was a boy. Out in the open field I would throw it far from me. It would whirl out and away on its journey, climbing steeply. And then, far out and up and still whirling, it would pause and after a moment begin its return flight with increasing swiftness. There were times when I would have been struck by it had I not stepped aside. Resentments are exactly like that. Aimed at others, they invariably turn on their sender.

But isn’t it strange that some who apparently have the greatest reasons to be resentful are not resentful at all? Take my friend Roger Winter, for example. With the splendid body God had given him he became a Little all-American football player, and was also very good at other sports. Then dread polio struck and in a matter of days Roger was an invalid. When I first met him he was in a wheelchair, being lovingly cared for by his young, attractive wife. Resentment could have made a demon out of Roger Winter, but it didn’t, for he gave it no opportunity. Resting back upon the grace of God, he found a divine love, a God-given sufficiency, which enables him to face life and win the battle of the spirit. He has written an inspiring book, which puts to shame those of us who have so much and yet complain so much. Some people have everything the heart could desire, yet they seethe and churn constantly with a personality-destroying resentment. Nothing dampens the spiritual glow any quicker!

Abraham Lincoln was once being criticized for his attitude towards his enemies. "Why do you try to make friends of them?" a colleague asked. "You should try to destroy them."

"Am I not destroying my enemies," the President asked gently, "when I make them my friends?"

Some people have everything the heart could desire, yet they seethe and churn constantly with a personality-destroying resentment. Nothing dampens the spiritual glow any quicker!

Recall the story of Joseph and the rascally brothers who sold him as a slave to the Ishmaelites. Had they sold me in such a manner I wonder what my reaction would have been. But Joseph’s love for his brethren remained unbroken through the years, and when he finally was placed in a position where he could have evened the score and brought them to disaster, he instead treated them with brotherly kindness. Some men are like that. They exhibit the spirit of Christ at every turn of the road. But others, like King Saul, rich and powerful, allow resentment to destroy their lives. How quickly the heart of the king filled with jealousy and resentment as he heard the women of his kingdom singing, “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands” (1 Sam. 18:7). From that moment on he sought in every possible way to bring David to death.

Resentments are acquired so easily: resentments against people, against circumstances, against one’s environment, against one’s responsibilities; these are the things which, if one will permit them to do so, will frustrate the soul and sicken the body. Let's watch out for the resentments, or they will destroy us. And I mean exactly that! I have seen many a person lose out spiritually because of harbored resentments. Sometimes, though, it is hard to identify the source of such bad feelings. They seem to slip up on us gradually. No trumpet announces their arrival; no bell warns of the disaster, which harbored resentments can bring. But give them room and from that moment on, your soul will begin to shrivel and droop, for resentments indicate a personality in need of spiritual therapy, a life courting defeat.

And yet, isn’t it true that resentments rise most often in those hearts, which are not adequately protected by the love and grace of God? Here they thrive like weeds in an untended garden. They show up in the midst of envy and jealousy, and in persons who feel themselves to be unloved, unwanted, and unappreciated. Resentment invariably accompanies self-pity. Resentment’s call for alibis, too—the excuses we make for failing to live up to the standards we set for ourselves. That was one trouble with King Ahab. He was supposed to be the spiritual leader of God’s people, but guilt was upon his conscience in the matter of Naboth’s vineyard and the slaying of its owner.

In First Kings 20:43 we read where the King “went to his house resentful and sullen.” Why? He had disobeyed the Lord, and as a result, had been rebuked by the prophet Elijah. Now, with guilt on his soul and condemnation in his heart, he resented being found out—resented receiving the reproof he so justly deserved. His pride was wounded deeply. Meeting Elijah in the road, he had said, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” And Elijah had replied, “I have found thee." Actually, it was God and truth and justice—his own conscience—which had found him. No wonder he was so grouchy and irritable!

Isn’t this the source of a great deal of resentment today? Disobedience must eventually face reproof. “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth” (Heb. 12:6). Many people resent the truth because it steps on their toes. They resent the preacher because he is the mouthpiece for truth. It reminds me of the man who buys a newspaper from the boy on the corner, reads the headlines, then slaps the newsboy because be doesn’t like what be read. It doesn’t make sense, does it? Another reason why resentment builds up in certain hearts is lack of love, a genuine Christian love. Wasn’t that the trouble with the young housewife I mentioned earlier? Because of an insufficient love her daily tasks were reduced to drudgery. In First Corinthians 13:5 Paul said that love is neither irritable nor resentful. Do you have a difficulty based on the need to love more perfectly? to love in a selfless, Christian way? If you really love your neighbor, will you be jealous of him? envious and resentful of his property and prosperity?

The resentful heart needs to find a closer walk with God, and a more realistic relationship to Jesus Christ. Let me say it again: resentments can wreck your very life. I’ve known preachers who left the ministry because of resentments, which built up inside of them: resentments against circumstances, resentments against boards of trustees in churches where they labored, resentments against the harsh, covetous, or domineering members of such boards. They picked up resentments against the “pushy” members of the congregation who had belittled them by forcing them to become taxi drivers and church flunkies. They resented wealthier members of the congregation whose money and possessions were not at God’s disposal when needs of the church were great and the treasury was depleted. They resented the poverty in which they were forced to live for many years, a poverty, which brought on increasing anxiety as the age for retirement crept closer and closer. They resented fellow ministers who pastored better-paying churches, and men who outdistanced them in success and surpassed them in ability.

Watch those resentments! They will destroy you. How many, many times I have seen it done. I am writing to you out of a genuine concern. I can remember prominent businessmen who resigned important, well-paying positions simply because they could not handle their emotions. Their resentments built up until they were overbalanced by them, and the results were expensive both in terms of money and friendships. Again, you can wreck a wonderful marriage with resentments if you aren’t careful. A wife can pick up a real or an imagined slight, mix it liberally with self-pity, and before long build a very real wall between herself and her husband. The husband, in the intimate relations of the home, can allow his own resentments to build up until they cut off what should always be wide open lines of communication with his wife. Serious trouble may follow. The whole thing gets under way when selfishness out-balances love. Love “seeketh not her own”; but selfishness seeks her own.

Resentment can be very vicious and very destructive. I well remember the pastor’s wife who ruined her husband’s career through resentments. First of all, she resented his being a minister, and reminded him again and again that if he had indicated in the slightest before their marriage that he was interested in the ministry, the wedding would never have taken place. She made life miserable for him. She resented living in an ordinary parsonage, resented the lack of privacy, which is the lot of every parsonage family. She resented the fact that her business seemed to be everybody’s business. She couldn’t buy a "$1.98 hat" without every woman in the church passing judgment on it. This woman made it utterly impossible for her husband to continue in the pastorate, so at last he sadly gave up. But the intervening years have brought happiness to neither of them. Remember, there are handicaps to every job, disagreeable tasks attached to every vocation. But the Christian finds an extra something with which to steadily face life and all its problems. The grace of God enables him to perform tasks both menial and otherwise in the spirit of Christ. We must learn to handle people and problems with Christian love and patience, to take the bitter with the sweet.

The person who is self-righteous instead of “made righteous by his faith” is particularly susceptible to resentments. For example, if the grace of God does not overflow your soul, you can resent an alcoholic husband until your spiritual condition becomes worse than his. How often we think of ourselves as being better than the other fellow. Beware, lest such a feeling lead to a very hurtful and deceptive self-righteousness.

I remember the woman who poured out her heart in anguish about her alcoholic husband, saying she was fed up, couldn’t take it any longer; that he’d have to get along as best he could without her from now on. As she talked she shook her head and became red in the face. I told her I would pray for her husband, as he really needed it, but that I would pray for her, also, because I detected in her attitude that which needed maturing and refinement by God’s love and grace. You can resent an unfaithful wife until you develop ulcers. You can resent disobedient children until it robs you of your enjoyment of prayer and public worship. Resentments are our enemies.

Again and again I have stressed the importance of attitudes as they relate to Christian living. You can wreck your home and upset your relationships with people just by manifesting sub-Christian attitudes. And we can’t just press a button and change. The change will come from within, and must spring from a healthier, more mature relationship with Christ. If this is your need, be encouraged to ask the Lord for help. He has it for you.

Don’t begin harboring resentments because of little irritations—things like the newsboy habitually tossing your newspaper into the shrubbery or up on the roof. Or more important things, like failing health or a crippling accident. Aren’t saints people who face all the trials, endure all the heartaches, go through the strain and struggle of life, then, in spite of it all, maintain the spirit of Christ in their lives? [ The End ]