A couple of weeks ago I was grousing to myself about being unfairly wronged by another. I don’t like feeling resentful because I know it is totally out of character with living the Sermon on the Mount which instructs us to forgive, love our enemies, and move on.
But no matter how I looked at the situation I faced, I still felt wronged, and the burden this resentment brought within was not lifting.
I said all the right words in my prayers, but still, the resentment would not leave.
Finally, the angel message came,
“I might be wronged by others, but I don’t have to suffer from their actions.”
Wow! That was the inspiration I needed to hear.
I realized that I was stuck in my prayers because I was trying to see the unreality of the injustice. And I couldn’t. Injustice is injustice. How can you see a wrong as right? You can’t. Wrong is wrong, and right is right, simple as that.
I thought about Jesus Christ’s experience with others. He was wronged many times, and very unfairly. If he couldn’t avoid being treated unjustly, how would I avoid it?
Also, he did not tell his followers that they would never be wronged. In fact, he taught quite the opposite. He warned his students that they would be wronged, and they might as well expect it. But he didn’t leave it there.
He explained,
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Well of course, I finally figured out with the emphasis of a strong blow across the head, that we feel resentful when we believe something of worth has been taken from us. Something of value like maybe an opportunity, perhaps money, a thing, or esteem, respect, honor, or something similar.
These are all worldly, though. They are not of heaven, I began to see clearly. They are of the temporal realm and to be released for the spiritual.
All good is truly spiritual, and not of this world, I reaffirmed. No one on this planet could do anything, no matter how unjust, that deprived me of anything genuinely good. My substance is safe and sound in Spirit, I knew!
And that’s when I really understood the message, “I might be wronged by others, but I don’t have to suffer from their actions.”
I interpreted this to mean, I might be, and probably would be again, wronged humanly by others, but I will never feel suffering from their actions when I know my substance, being and individuality is spiritual, safe and sound in heaven, where no human can touch it.
My goal in life was not to build myself up humanly in a way that others could tear down. It was not to achieve any type of prestige or certain kind of respect from others. It was not to be anything of this world really. It was to grow in spiritual understanding, yield up all belief of life in matter, and be the heavenly child of God I was created to be in the first place. From this higher spiritual point of view, there wasn’t anything anyone of this world could do to truly hurt me. Human injustice might sting for a while, as I let go of human ego, but in the long run, all is spiritual and totally out of the reach of malice and hatred.
Whew!
This higher view was a mega-relief, and I’m still floating in upper mental space from the buoyancy it brought to me.
No more resentment…just more love.
You can do it too.
Thank you, Evan. I can see the truth in that for me, too. I understand now that the key is to know that I can’t suffer for someone else’s wrong. I, too, was trying to unsee the wrong, but that doesn’t work for myself nor for the wrong-doer.
And this will help me to be free of wrong-doing as well.
This is brilliant. I would love to see THIS in the periodicals.
I was let go from a job years ago. It helped me to see that they could take away the opportunity to express a skill, but they couldn’t take away the skill. This takes that to a whole new level.
Wow … how appropriate for me to read and ponder this morning. Would you please amplify on the idea that respect is worldly and not of heaven? I think of respect along the same lines of the Golden Rule, to do unto others …
Thanks
J-
My comment “respect is worldly,” was meant from the point of view of expecting others to respect us because we are more experienced, for example, or have more education, or are older than they are, have more credentials, etc., or just because we think they ought to because they should be obeying the Golden Rule.
You are right in that we all should follow the Golden Rule and love each other as we would be loved, which includes the quality of showing respect. But this does not always happen. Lots of people don’t follow the Golden Rule. But that doesn’t mean we have to suffer in the meantime, and we won’t if we look to God for validation, and not to others.
For me, when greatly wronged by another, I kept praying to forgive, and could easily do so. Then one day in church during “congregational” prayer, I saw a view of why the other person had misinterpreted some things I had done — and from their vantage point, I could understand their actions. Realizing I had not intended to convey this negativity toward them, I quickly asked God what I could do to remedy the situation, and the answer was, “it’s already done!” From that breakthrought I also came to realize that to button up this experience, I needed to rise higher to realize God never created a mind other than Her own, therefore there was no mind power to think ill. And from there I have been working to know there is only One divine Mind operating with any kind of power at all — and that mind is only good. There is no “other” mind to think evil, and I can not be the victim of this belief in another mind besides God.
Thanks Evan for amplifying ‘respect is worldly’. More for me to ponder.
The human says with an abusive childhood, I learned the patterns of allowing others to be disrespectful to me, and that this ‘wronged by others’ continues in many different ways to-day. However, from my study of Christian Science, I am learning this is not my history, nor my identity, nor the identify of others. However, seeing these truths evidenced in day-to-day experiences is a learning experience.
I know I should be taking a higher mental stand, and I do try to listen for divine wisdom of when to say something and when to remain quiet. I know not all individuals follow the Golden Rule. Nevertheless, it really stings, when those I do know follow the Golden Rule, do things that come across as hurtful and cruel, those who say that they ‘love me’. Oh, to be out of the reach of the ugliness of matter and the human ego and to ‘be the heavenly child of God I was created to be’.
Thanks for your blogs, it’s good for me to read of others making Christian Science so practical in their daily life.
J-
This is terrific!
It is perhaps the favorite thing I’ve been learning lately. I used to feel quite confused about how you could “love” evil. What a relief it has been to learn you don’t “love” the evil but you can protect yourself from it’s attempt to make you suffer.
It started sorting itself out in my thinking recently when I remembered working in a bank years ago and having to deal with a counterfeit check. As I thought back through that situation I realized that at no time did I take the check and try to alter it or make it into something viable. It couldn’t be viable. — ever. It was a brilliantly constructed falsehood that in the end could not stand up to the proper scrutiny of what was true. Once I caught on to what it really was I turned it over to the proper authorities. It could not continue to cause trouble. I was done with it and moved on.
It has been an interesting concept to apply to evil in it’s various forms.
Thanks for this post. What a joyful reminder.