If anyone says, “I love God,”
but hates his brother, he is a liar;
for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen
cannot love God whom he has not seen.
This is the commandment we have from him:
Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
This passage called me out! I have been having a very hard time forgiving my brother for myriad reasons. Some days it just goes away , some days the hate consumes me! It makes me see red !!
As I walked into the new year I realised I need to be a better person for my own wellbeing and sanity, and one of the aspects was letting go of grudges and hate. While I am an extremely short tempered human- I get angry and within minutes I am back to normal and within hours I actually forget the situation. I rarely remember arguments or hurtful words except those which left an impact — and those are rare!
But with my brother, the anger kept building over many years. From me finding faults in everything he does and all his life decisions, I kept nitpicking a lot. Of course, being the younger sibling I do not say much cause I get told off by parents. Familiarity breeds contempt and this was not contempt but complete annoyance ! As I moved on over the years, I realised not only was he oblivious to all the anger I festered, nor did he even care ! Instead I just kept getting more upset and cranky at home.
That made me realise, I was just building resentment in my own heart consuming me constantly. I was not being true to my Lord nor to myself, I was just being a silly sibling making a mountain of a mole hill (not all the time).
Often we dislike other humans – friends or even family or worse, co workers. We judge them , compare them to our own standards of life and consider everything they do to be wrong or in appropriate. Today Jesus calls us out for this attitude, let us learn to be forgiving and less judgmental and be kind to everyone as we never know what battle they been fighting, learn to emulate Christ by being welcoming to these humans we once considered annoying and tune out the thoughts of resentment.
PRAYER
Dearest Lord, I submit my resentment and hate at your feet, forgive the other person and me for building this wrong emotion. Help me to learn to accept them as they are and be kind, not judge them and bring them into your light through my prayers.
AMEN.
