he prophet Jeremiah said, "Man is stupid, devoid of knowledge" (Jer 10:14). Before you become offended at his statement consider this. Regardless of anyone’s opinion of ’religion’, no sensible person can argue with such a statement as "love your neighbour". Yet as a professional psychologist and Christian minister, I witness perpetually the horrible, hurtful, unloving things we do to each other. Jeremiah may not have been all that far off in his observation of human nature.

One thing we humans excel at is our ability to recognise the faults of others. As this is a true statement, you can identify dozens of situations in which people are unwilling to forgive others. Unforgiveness begins with an offence, a perceived personal injury to one’s opinion of right and wrong. Unforgiveness when held over a period of time becomes bitterness. Unforgiveness by itself effectively divides people and no positive result ever occurs. But when unforgiveness becomes bitterness then the holder of this emotion is in trouble. Bitterness is that emotion which ’nags’ at you, and you can’t let it go. It slowly but surely takes an unhealthy control of your mind.

Bitter people respond in one of two ways. Some keep the emotion inside and it literally 'eats at them'. There is medical opinion that bitterness is one of the causes of cancer, which literally eats the tissues and organs of the body.

he second way bitter people act is to voice their grievances and attempt to find agreement in others with their offended feelings. This often makes others very uncomfortable, even to the point that it alienates us from family and friends. This then leads to our developing a victim mentality. The victim either withdraws or strikes out at others. The victim begins to lie, cheat, manipulate, gossip and can even have paranoid thoughts. As these negative behaviour patterns continue, a vicious cycle takes over and the more we act out our negative feelings, the more people pull away from us. Now we have a serious situation in which the victim acts out aggressively towards others, often innocent persons, or suicidal thoughts take over. And all this may have begun with a perceived offence or slight hurt, or even a real one!

Well, I could write a textbook on this subject, but the solution is so simple: FORGIVENESS! Forgiveness is one of the most healing acts that exists. It draws others to us. It is healing to our bodies. It is a standard of behaviour that others respect. It is a "people building-enabling-healing action" wherein everyone wins!

I can just hear the prophet Jeremiah as he witnesses us forgiving others, "Well! I guess not everyone is stupid and devoid of knowledge."

Alan

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