It is easy to be kind to those who are kind, considerate, reasonable, and respectful. It is not quite so easy to be kind to those who are unkind, inconsiderate, unreasonable, and disrespectful. When someone offends us-and we haven’t learned to hold our tongue, pull away, and run to the Lord to unload the hurt and anger in our hearts-we will most likely get pulled into our offender’s bad temper, anger, contention, or abusive language and act in a way similar to the one who is mistreating us.
However, God has a better way for us to live and deal with offenders. We must work on ourselves, putting our hurt and anger on the Lord by feeling the emotions, talking to Him about them, and letting them go. God is big enough to take it.
Learning to let go is an ongoing, spiritual and emotional life skill. After the Lord takes our unconstructive emotions, we must choose to continually forgive our offender in the same way that God, through Jesus Christ, has forgiven us for our offenses. True forgiveness is a process, because our wounds must unravel before we are able to give a full, complete pardon to our offender. We are not responsible for our offender’s actions or heart, only our own. God has the grace we desperately need, to keep us from fainting during the effort, and work it takes to give our negative emotions to the Him. Then we will reap the replacement benefits of peace, joy, and the power to forgive and be free. Forgiveness doesn’t necessarily mean we will have a relationship with those we forgive; but it does mean we will be free from the torment and anguish created when we do not forgive, and the Holy Spirit will give us the power to be kind and diplomatic.
“Let all bitterness and wrath [passion, rage, bad temper] and resentment [anger, animosity] and quarreling [brawling, clamor, contention] and slander [evil-speaking, abusive, or blasphemous language] be banished from you, with all malice [spite, ill will, or baseness of any kind]. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted [compassionate, understanding, loving-hearted], forgiving one another [readily and freely], as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:31-32).
