He Burns Me Up

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He Burns Me Up

Therefore, let us observe the feast, not with... malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 1 CORINTHIANS 5:8

Is it true that nursing a grudge can cause physical illness? A man I knew became enraged over something another Christian had done to him. I advised him to forgive and forget. He replied: "But every time I see him, he burns me up."

I said: "That's because you want to burn him up, and all you succeed in doing is burning yourself up." I told him about the sadistic farmer who tied a stick of dynamite to a hawk, lit the fuse, and then turned the bird loose, expecting it to blow itself up in mid-air. Instead, the hawk flew into the man's barn, and the explosion wrecked not only the barn but part of his house also.

He listened, but I could see my words had not gone in. He could think and talk of nothing else but getting even with his fellow Christian. His wife told me that his breath became foul, his appetite left him, his digestion became bad, he suffered loss of sleep and, after a few months, he dropped down dead.

In case someone says, "But there could have been other reasons for his death," I can tell you that I talked to his doctor, who was a close personal friend of mine, and he told me that the man had died of an "undrained grudge.

"Of course, you can't put that on a death certificate, but many doctors know that "undrained grudges" play a major role in creating physical disorders. A missionary suffered a breakdown because of a grudge he had held against his ministry organization for not supplying him with enough money. Apparently, grudges are just as deadly in the godly as the ungodly.

Daily Prayer
Father, I see so clearly that my hurts harm me even more when I harbor them. Help me not to hold on stubbornly to my wounded pride, but consent for You to lance my inner boils, no matter how much it may hurt. In Jesus' name. Amen.