You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:18 ESV)
Well-Worn Paths
It usually seems that the well-worn path is the easiest to follow. But that ain’t necessarily so.
In a suburban woods near my childhood home, my best friend and I used to ride our bikes. The paths we followed wove around hills and trees, and hardly followed the mathematical definition of a line. (A line is the shortest distance between two points…)
Occasionally, my friend, perhaps realizing how much energy and time we wasted every day on our way to our fort, noticed that if we went off-path to the left, instead of following the path to the right, we would arrive quicker, and probably easier.
But we could not make ourselves do it. The age old path was known, familiar, and well-travelled. It therefore seemed automatically easier.
One day a tree had fallen across our path, and we were forced to blaze that new trail. And sure enough, that new path was direct, smoother than we thought, and fast.
Our grudges are like that well-worn path. Our original anger or hurt that led us to feel we had the right to hate becomes simply what we are used to. We stopped noticing the time we spend grudging, the energy we spend grudging, the harm we do everyone grudging. The harm we do ourselves grudging. And especially the disobedience to God we display when we grudge.
God says there is a better path. Forgiveness.
And He is an expert on that path. He paved the way.
Turn left.