FROM the start I sensed that this chapter was going to be a difficult one. Longsuffering doesn't especially appeal to anyone. The very word puts us off. None of us wants to suffer long if we can help it. If we have to suffer, then please let it be over quickly! That's my view, anyway.
Our English word longsuffering is self-evidently the joining together of two words. And coincidentally the Greek word for longsuffering in the New Testament is also a combination of two words makro and thumeo. Makrothumia means literally slow anger, or long temper. Sometimes it's translated patience. And, annoyingly, newer versions (such as the NIV and NEB) give patience in Galatians 5 as part of the fruit of the Spirit. I believe the translators are wrong here, because they fail to maintain a necessary distinction between patience and longsuffering. There is a difference, and it's worth hanging on to because one is a fruit of the Spirit, and one isn't.
The scriptural difference between patience and longsuffering is best shown in the character of Job. Job is proverbial for his patience, but he is not proverbial for his longsuffering! And the record of his life is a powerful illustration of how far God will sometimes go in order to encourage a man in some vital part of the fruit of the Spirit which is lacking.
When James wrote, "Ye have heard of the patience of Job," he didn't use the word makrothumia (longsuffering), he used the word hupomone, the more usual word for patience in the New Testament. Nothing remarkable about that, you might think. But the point is that James suddenly switched from the word makrothumia, which he'd used four times in the previous five verses, and used a different word to describe Job! You wouldn't know this from reading the Authorised Version (or many other versions) because the word patience is used in all cases regardless of a change in the original Greek word.
It has to be significant that all the while James was talking about the sort of patience it takes to develop fruit, he used the word makrothumia:
"Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it... Be ye also patient..." (Jas. 5:7-8).
But when he turned his attention to Job, he changed the word:
"Ye have heard of the patience (hupomone) of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy." (James 5.11)
Logically, James should just have carried on using the same word. But the Spirit that moved James's hand directed otherwise, and for good reason. James was trying to impress upon his readers (us!) that we need more than hupomone. Because the 'end of the Lord'—that is, the final outcome towards which the Lord was steering Job through his trials—was that Job should learn makrothumia. Those trials were perfectly tailored to teach Job precisely what he needed to learn: an aspect of love that was missing from his character.
I'm not denying that Job was an exemplary character, or that the patience he exhibited under extreme trial was of a very high order. But he still had a lesson to learn, and I believe that lesson concerned a lack of longsuffering. Some further thoughts on the Greek word will bear this out.
William Barclay, in his excellent book 'New Testament Words' describes hupomone as "one of the noblest of New Testament words," because it represents a form of patience that relates specifically to tribulation. So, of course, James chose his word well when he related hupomone to Job. Hupomone is not a passive sort of patience, that sits around and lets the world go by. This is an active patience. It's the patience by which we can bear things with a blazing hope! It's not a quiet, stoical endurance, grimly hanging on in there because things just might work out better in the end. It's a patience which radiantly expects a better dawn to break soon, even from within the blackest clouds of misery.
That was Job all over. He had the capacity for standing back and seeing the whole picture, maintaining his faith; knowing that no matter what was going on, God was good and God was in control, therefore only good could ultimately come out of it. There is no denying the excellent qualities of Job. To achieve and maintain hupomone as he did was no mean feat.
Having said that, though, there is undoubtedly another side to Job's character that comes out when we read his conversations with his three friends. Job wasn't so patient in another sense of the word. He wasn't particularly patient towards his friends. At times he appears quite exasperated with them because of their inability to understand and sympathize with his situation (and, one might add, who can blame him?) "No doubt you are the men who know all," he said to them, (and not without sarcasm, surely?) "and wisdom will die with you. But I have brains as well as you; why, anyone knows all you say!" (Moffatt) "Plaguy comforters" he called them. And he asked when their windbag speeches were ever going to end!
He wasn't particularly patient in this way, was he? He wasn't especially good when it came to the other sort of patience which is makrothumia. As we said, the word means long-tempered, or slow to anger. The fault in his character was of being short-tempered with his friends. It's not difficult to see why James didn't apply makrothumia to Job, but opted for another word. But by the end of the matter, Job had learned to be longsuffering. He finally prayed for his three friends, instead of snapping at them. Interestingly, James goes on to speak of prayer: "Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray" (Jas.5:13). And in the verse immediately following his mention of Job (v.12), James warns against the evils of swearing—something to which the short-tempered are especially prone!—they just let fly without thinking.
Originally, swearing was confined to taking God's name in vain: uttering an oath you have no intention of honouring, merely using His Name or Jesus' name to add force to what you're saying. It's a way of saying, "I really do mean this!" But it is both displeasing and dishonouring to God to call upon Him to lend weight to our petty opinions, commitments and feelings. Jesus warns us not to swear at all; not to commit ourselves to anything we may afterwards be unable to follow through. Certainly not to treat swearing as an habitual literary device for underlining what we say! This latter use of swearing is common today. Nowadays 'swear-words' need not refer to God or Jesus, but can be any word thought crude enough to add emphasis or show how 'big' the speaker is. What great company for the names of God and Jesus!
It could also be pointed out that there are many expressions where the names of God and Jesus are being used, probably without the user being aware of it. Phrases like "My Goodness", "Good Gracious", "Good Heavens", "Crikey" seem innocuous, but are they really? And sometimes initials are substituted, as in "Giddy Aunt" (God Almighty) and "Jiminy Cricket" (Jesus Christ). "Gosh" and "Cripes" don't fare too well, either. (But don't heap guilt upon yourself because you suddenly realize what you've been saying all these years! Ignorance is not an excuse, but neither is it unforgivable. Under the Law of Moses provision was made for sins of ignorance. No one can seriously doubt that a similar provision exists under the present High Priest-ship of Christ.)
It's often said that swearing covers for a lack of vocabulary, but the problem is worse than that. If it were simply lack of vocabulary, then the educated wouldn't swear. You know as well as I do that they can be as bad if not worse than the uneducated. What is lacking in the habitual swearer is not generally a decent vocabulary but the ability to express feelings adequately. People feel they must swear in order to show they are upset or happy. It is their emotional vocabulary that is sparse. This is what needs addressing. When a believer falls into the habit of swearing, as can happen, it's as well to look for this emotional deficit. Do you think that people will take you seriously only if you add some 'reinforcement' to your talking? Is swearing the only way you have of communicating that you're really angry over something? Or that you really mean something? Perhaps it's even a sign of suppressed anger? (We'll look at that in a moment.)
Of course, swearing is often just caught, like a cold. It's a social disease. People do it because everyone around them does it. It's difficult being in the same workplace, school, college, or home environment with those who swear without catching the disease yourself. Standards in the media have dropped, too. But believers need to resist it. It's not a matter of being a prude, or out of touch with today's more down-to-earth approach to living. There's always been swearing. And the reasons for believers not doing it have always been the same. First and foremost, it displeases and devalues God. Next it involves crudity and sometimes shows an unbecoming preoccupation with sex and bodily functions. Added to these, it's a sign of emotional immaturity. It can indicate the lack of ability to express strong feeling in any other way. For instance, we shouldn't have to swear just to convince others we are passionate about something. Added to which there's usually a strong social-acceptance factor in swearing. It's generally done to make you feel one of the boys, or girls—so insecurity plays a part. In contrast, a believer needs to be God-pleasing, God-honouring, clean-speaking, emotionally mature, and have God-given security. Only a fool would say that a believer is prudish and out of touch by not swearing. The believer is very much in touch with what truly matters. And his life is better for it. Swearing really is 'down to earth', as people sometimes say in its defence, but that's not a good direction for a believer's thoughts.
Once we realise that longsuffering means long or slow anger, we're well on the way to understanding this aspect of the fruit of the Spirit. God Himself is described as being "slow to anger" (Neh.9:17), so it's appropriate that His children should bear the family likeness. Incidentally, that other word, patience (hupomone), is never used of God, doubtless because God can't be said to endure tribulation in the same sense that we do. But we do read of the longsuffering of God. The Apostle Peter mentions it in relation to the time of Noah, "...when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water" (1 Pet.3:20).
Slowness to anger is a characteristic of God for which we can all be extremely grateful. Peter actually says in his Second Epistle that we should "account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation." He bears with us in our folly every day of our lives. He restrains Himself from dealing with us as our sins deserve. He is very slow to anger with us. In Noah's time He could easily have miraculously held Noah and his family aloft and dry while He brought the flood on the earth. Instead of which He waited all those long years while Noah built the ark and preached righteousness to the world in the hope that more would be saved. And you have to consider that God foreknew that only seven other souls would be convinced, the rest of Noah's immediate family—so God waited all that time for only seven people to come to their senses!
God is the same towards this last generation. He waits while the preaching goes on. But He'll not wait forever. His longsuffering will come to an end. Slow anger is not no anger at all. God will ultimately vent His anger upon the incurably godless of this world. The flood came, and so will this world's judgement—exactly the point Peter made in his Second Epistle (2 Pet.3:6,7).
To a lesser degree the same is true for believers with regard to longsuffering. It is God's prerogative to rid the world of ugliness (vengeance is His, not ours), but we all need to keep in mind that slow anger is not no anger. Or we may do ourselves some harm.
It's not possible for us to experience no anger whatsoever. What matters is how we express the anger we sometimes feel. Also what matters is that we do express it, or release it, in some way.
A lot of psychological damage can be traced to unexpressed, repressed anger. Counsellors dealing with emotionally disturbed people often find unexpressed anger over past events the root cause of present problems. The hidden damage works its way to the surface. It is necessary that we give vent to, or release our anger, but in acceptable ways. It's not acceptable to express the anger we may feel in ways that are physically or emotionally damaging to other people. I'm sure I don't need to marshal any scriptural proof for that.
The very opposite of slow anger is quick temper. The unacceptable face of anger is the quick temper. Everyone hates being around the time-bomb personality. And such personalities do far more harm to themselves than encourage a scarcity of friends and high blood pressure. Such people are in deep Spiritual trouble. Nothing is more plainly not a part of love—not a part of the fruit of the Spirit—than quick temperedness; the short fuse, the acid tongue, the angry glare: these were never products of love.
But to get back to the point: we do need to express and release the anger in our lives. It's evident that longsuffering is slow anger, and not the total absence of it. That is not to say that when something angers us we spend our time fretting and fuming underneath, slowly coming to the boil. We don't want to be like the man who slowly counts to ten and then socks the other fellow on the jaw! It's not the postponement of anger we seek, but the resolution of it. It's not the denial or suppression of anger that we seek, but the healthy expression or dissipation of it.
Regarding anger, the Bible and modern psychology are in general agreement. In fact, there are many points of agreement between the Bible and today's psychology. It shouldn't really surprise us that the professors who study the workings of the human mind sometimes come to the same conclusions as the God who created the mind. It would be the more astonishing if the two didn't agree sometimes. Believers should not shy away from psychology, as if it were the next best thing to witchcraft!—but treat it as they would any branch of science, taking from it the good and helpful, and rejecting the bad and unhelpful.
It should also be borne in mind that before the science of psychology came along (not that long ago), psychology was the province of the church. Psyche is a Greek word familiar to Bible students which means soul. Psychology is literally the study of the soul. Helping troubled souls was traditionally the church's business. The recent hi-jacking of psychology by science should neither make us suspicious of all 'soul-study', nor make us forget that it is still the province of the church.
The advent of the Christian psychologist is a fairly recent phenomenon, but not unexpected as some branches of psychology move ever closer to the wisdom of Scripture. Much of the work of Christian counsellors is based on the findings of Christian psychologists, and carried out by them. And it's good to see that the psychology, in this case, has become Bible-based, drawing its conclusions from the Bible, rather than attempting to fit Bible data to existing psychological dogma. Bible statements, such as "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine" (Prov.17:22) and "as [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Prov.23:7), are good, sound psychology, telling us of the effect of attitude upon health and life generally. Some psychologists are, in fact, discovering the proofs for these Bible truths through their own observations. And so can we, through our own experience! Some might say it's just good common sense that how we think and feel affects how we are. But, as the saying goes, "common sense isn't so common." Common sense is usually the label we attach to self-evident truths after someone has pointed them out to us. The Scriptures abound with such truths.
Let's now have a look at some Biblical 'common sense' about anger.
"A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man quietly holds back" (Prov.29:11 RSV).
"Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath" (Eph.4:26).
"Be ... slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God" (Jas.1:19,20).
Looking at those verses we can see that the Bible doesn't mince words over what we are if we allow anger its full reign. We are fools! The idea that it is better to let off steam and not bottle up anger is not supported here. It's not an excuse for inexcusable behaviour, which is how the idea of letting off steam is usually put forward. However justified we may feel, a fit of explosive temper is not the Bible's answer. A literal translation of the second part of Prov.29:11 is "but a wise man calms it back." Anger is like a beast that wants to run amok, pawing the earth and snorting, and that needs restraining and calming by its owner. The wise man holds on and calms it back. How does he do that? We'll come to that in a moment.
One of the easiest things to do when angry is to sin: to attack another person verbally or even physically, or to think hateful thoughts about them and start a grudge festering away inside us. We might even say that we couldn't help our response, or the way we feel. Which just isn't true. We do have a choice about how we act and feel. Much as we might believe we're out of control, to vent our anger unacceptably is a choice we make, and a habit we get into. It is not something we are forced to do. There is a better way. Which we'll come to in a moment.
The sun should not go down on our wrath. That's the greatest piece of advice we'll ever find anywhere on the subject of anger.. Wouldn't it be great if we never let our anger last for more than a day! That whatever bad thing happened to us, we let it go before we put our head on the pillow! There would be no carry-over anger, no simmering hatred, no build-up of suppressed anger working its way to the surface one day as free-floating guilt, or neurosis, or physical illness. Letting go of anger quickly is an important step on the road to Spiritual, emotional and physical health. But how do we manage it? We'll come to that in just a moment.
In the third of the above quotations, James tells us that we need to be longsuffering because "the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." And it's rather important that we do achieve something of the righteousness of God, isn't it? Because, if you remember, it should be one of the primary concerns of us believers that we "seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness." When we do this we don't have to worry about all the necessities of life, because these things will be added to us (Matt. 6:33), as we discussed in Chapter One. But if we're allowing ourselves to vent our anger destructively (souring relationships or breaking noses!) or letting anger become chronic (the festering grudge), then we can forget all about the righteousness of God in our lives, and consequently any ideas we may have of God looking after our necessities.
The lack of just this one element of the fruit of the Spirit—longsuffering—can have that big a negative impact on our lives! But don't let that frighten you; let it motivate you. Fear is best used as fuel for motivation. The same can also be said of anger in some of its forms. If we can get worked up about something, we might be motivated enough to do something about it. So there is a positive side to anger. It's positively helpful at times! So long as we use anger and are not used by it. In general, though, our anger needs to be dealt with effectively by letting it go, calming the beast back. There is a simple Bible remedy for anger that really works, and is a pleasure to use when we get the hang of it. But we'll put off talking about that for just a little longer, until we have thought about the root cause of anger.
What causes anger? If you think about it, I'm sure you'll have to agree that it always involves some sort of loss. Try these examples:
- 1. LOSS of basic needs/security (anger at injustice)
- 2. LOSS of possessions by theft
- 3. LOSS of possessions by carelessness
- 4. LOSS of possessions by foolishness
- 5. LOSS of health
- 6. LOSS of a loved one
- 7. LOSS of a relationship
- 8. LOSS of a pleasure
- 9. LOSS of self-respect (mistreatment from others)
- 10. LOSS of self-respect (through sin)
Anger seems always to be a response to loss. We want to hit back somehow at something or someone—and sometimes even at God, though we might not be aware that's how we really feel, or want to express it quite so directly.
The first time the word anger appears in Scripture is when Esau was furious with his brother Jacob over the loss of his birthright (Gen.27:45). Esau's anger certainly wasn't achieving the righteousness of God for him! He felt cheated at his loss of family possessions and honour (probably in that order, too), and his only thought was for revenge. Many suns went down on his wrath.
The first time the word wrath occurs in Scripture (AV) is Genesis 4:5,6, and it's another brother problem! This time it is Cain who is angry with Abel. Cain lost his acceptability before God because he presented the wrong offering to Him. Cain wanted to do things his own way, and he vented his anger at being rejected on his brother who had done the right thing. That's one of the perverse things about anger, isn't it?—that we sometimes direct it not at the supposed offender, but at an innocent bystander, especially if the offender is big and powerful. Or we resent the man who did it properly when we fouled it up! There's the fellow who has had a bad day at the office. His real grievance is with the boss, but he arrives home to bark at the kids. And when things are going badly for us we can begin to feel annoyance towards those who are doing well and whose lives seem to be running much more smoothly (though they're probably not!).
If you look again at the above list of things we can lose that might lead to anger, you may recognize that each of the items on this list is also on the list we gave in Chapter One, on the very first page of that chapter. I didn't contrive this. I realised what was happening part way through composing the new list. That earlier list, you may recall, showed us ten items which add up to, in many people's minds, a satisfying and fulfilling life. It was mentioned there that we don't actually have to concentrate on acquiring those things—in fact, it's better that we don't do that. All we need to do is focus on our Spiritual life, and all that is necessary for us will come our way. But in order to test our Spiritual muscle we are tested through the lack (or loss!) of one or more of these items. Now, when that happens, and it will, the most inappropriate reaction we can have is anger. And yet anger is the most likely response!
The inescapable conclusion I draw from this is that whenever a believer gets angry, he or she is actually getting angry at what God is doing in their lives! They get angry at some particular circumstance in their lives (usually a loss of some kind) which God has brought to them. Anger is therefore a criticism of God. It may be indirect—we may say we're angry with a certain person who let us down or was rude to us—but it is still a criticism of the One who engineers all things to work together for good in our lives. The idea is that we should praise God, not criticise Him!
Remember the story of Jonah? He got angry about going to preach to the people of Nineveh. He didn't want to go and preach to them because his own people of Israel saw the people of Nineveh as a threat. The Israelites would have been pleased if God were to destroy Nineveh for its wickedness. The thought of a prophet going to turn them from their wicked ways and bring the blessings of God upon them would not appeal to a man of Israel. It certainly didn't appeal to poor Jonah as the prophet chosen for the job! He would be seen as a traitor by his fellow countrymen, fraternising with the enemy. So he took a boat going somewhere else instead of Nineveh, and God had to put him back on course by having him unceremoniously dumped overboard and swallowed by a huge fish. The fish deposited him on the sea-shore, and the reluctant prophet got on with what he now saw as the inevitable task of preaching to the people. And, woe upon woe! the people of Nineveh took notice of him and repented in their thousands! His worst fears had come true.
"It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry" (Jonah 4:1).
The Hebrew is quite strong there in the original. Jonah even asked for his life to be taken from him, fearing he no longer had a place among his fellow Israelites. For him to be the cause of great blessings upon Nineveh was unthinkable.
"Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?" (Jonah 4:4).
There's no recorded answer from Jonah. Instead it says he went out of the city into the desert to sulk. These people in the Bible are so real, aren't they? They are real people for certain when they get the hump and go off on their own to sulk!
And God caused a huge, leafy plant to grow up and shade Jonah from the hot sun, and Jonah was glad of it. Let's just stop at this point to note how longsuffering God is in all of this. We hear sometimes that the God of the Old Testament appears to be an angry and vengeful God, quite unlike the God of the New Testament. Some people almost think of them as two different Gods. But no, it is the same God of love all the way through the Scriptures. It's the Old Testament which first reveals God to be slow to anger, and that slowness is certainly evident here in His dealings with Jonah.
But then God sent a huge worm-like creature to eat up the leafy plant, so it withered and died, and Jonah lost his sunshade. More than this, God made it extra hot and uncomfortable the next day! So Jonah was angry again because his shady gourd had died. It was then that God put the same question to him again: "Doest thou well to be angry...?" (Jonah 4:9).
God had given Jonah the shade of that plant to enable him to sit in some comfort to consider his situation, to reflect upon his anger and come to his senses. That gourd was a visible evidence of God's providential care of Jonah. If only Jonah could recognize that, he would see that he really had nothing to be so worked up about. Why should he fear for his life when the providence of God was so obviously working for him? He would have been better occupied rejoicing in the salvation of Nineveh rather than stewing in his own misery.
There is a parallel in the story of Jonah for all believers. Jonah unwittingly acted out a little parable for all those believers who ever get angry (and who does that leave out?). We all experience the gourds of life that God produces for our shelter and which make life reasonably comfortable for us. We have to appreciate that these things are from God. Be thankful for them and don't take them for granted. When we know for certain that all we have is from God we shouldn't worry; we can trust Him to look after us. We don't need to fret and fume like Jonah. If we choose to go through life anxious about the future, we are doubting God's future care for us, and we are doubting God's present care.
If we truly believe that God controls all we have, we have no worries about the loss of anything because it's all in His hands. God can send along a 'worm' at any time He chooses to gobble up the sheltering gourds in our lives. And He may not only remove the shelter from us, He may also make the day a lot hotter than it was before! Not because He is cruel and likes to see us sweating and struggling, but because He has our best interests at heart. He wants us to learn to trust Him. If we haven't yet learned to rely on God in our day-to-day lives, if we haven't yet taken on board the reality that "all things work together for good" for believers, then God will bring something into our lives that will be designed to wake us up to that reality. I doubt, though, that many of us will see it as God bringing something into our lives; it will seem more likely that He's taking something out! It will be the loss of something. And if we're not careful we will be angry at that loss. Do we do well to be angry? Of course not. "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." God is trying to instill His righteousness into us when He tests us, and our anger will stand in the way of that righteousness. We do well to be slow to anger—longsuffering—in order that we might, over time, soften the anger and learn to trust God. How do we do that? The time has come to reveal the amazingly ordinary answer.
What is the secret, then, of de-fusing anger? What is it that lies at the heart of longsuffering, and makes it possible? It's very simple really. It's one of the most basic elements of Christian love. It works to allay all kinds of anger, from the sudden burst, to the long-running seethe, to the hidden angers that knot us up inside when we're not even aware what's really 'bugging' us. Someone once wisely said,
The answer to all anger, and thus the secret of longsuffering, is quite simply the act of forgiveness. Okay, we all knew that, it's Christian ABC! But how well do we know it, and how well do we do it?
Forgiveness is so easy. Anyone can do it. There's absolutely nothing to it. Is there? If only it really were that simple. If only we all understood it and practised it as well as we think we do! And for the sake of our own emotional, and even physical well-being, it is essential that we do. Though, primarily, we don't forgive for emotional and physical reasons, we do it for our spiritual health. The emotional and physical advantages are a spin-off from focusing on the spiritual. Which is always the case. When we address the "one thing" which is needful, other benefits will follow.
It does us more harm than others when we don't forgive them. Firstly, it puts our relationship with God in jeopardy. For, "If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses" (Matt.6:15). Nothing could be more serious than that. To be unforgiving is to throw away the Kingdom! Make no mistake about it.
Secondly, not forgiving others causes a sort of emotional blockage that puts tensions inside us that can have physical repercussions. Psychologists have learned that deep emotional problems which began even way back in childhood and youth can be dealt with by an act of forgiveness. Emotional disturbances later in life have been traced to underlying and often unacknowledged anger at a parent, or teacher, or brother, or sister, or some other authority figure in our lives who either wilfully or unintentionally mistreated us. The anger of unforgiveness simmers away over the years. And the best way to resolve it? Forgiveness, plain and simple. Not necessarily going to the one, or ones, who made you angry because of their treatment of you, because they may not even be alive or accessible now, but bringing them to mind and what you believe they did, and from the heart freely and honestly forgiving them. When you don't know what's knotting you up, when it's a case of free-floating anxiety, I suggest you delve back and you may well find the emotional blockages and physical tensions of unforgiveness.
Forgive everyone, everything. Hold nothing against anyone. Even if they won't forgive you, even if they go on being unpleasant to you—forgive them. Let it go! "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven..." (Matt.5:44,45). Be longsuffering like God. Turn every occasion for anger into an opportunity for forgiveness.
Forgiveness needs practice. Like all the things that don't come naturally to us, forgiveness needs to be worked on until it becomes a habit. The man who flares up at almost every opportunity and claims he can't help it, and tells you, "That's the way I am," is really telling you that's the habit he's gotten into. It took years of practice to get like that, the nurturing of lots of grudges and the labour of building a sizeable chip on his shoulder. He's spent a lot of time getting like that, reacting badly to the slings and arrows of life. It didn't just happen overnight. But it's still a choice to stay like that, whatever he might believe. All it requires is the acquiring of a new habit.
The more we practise forgiveness in our lives the better we get at it. It starts in the small everyday things like mentally forgiving the person who pushed in front of you in the queue instead of fuming and wanting to give him a piece of your mind. You just let it go, calm it back, take the opportunity to practise forgiving. Let forgiveness be a way of life for you in all things, however small or great. Then you will have learned to express (not hide and suppress) and resolve your anger in a positive and healthy way. Looking right back over your life from your earliest memories to now, do you have anything against anyone, any hints or lumps of bad feeling towards them? However small, however large, be it friend or enemy, neighbour or work-fellow, family or acquaintance—FORGIVE THEM. Set yourself free from the bondage of anger and unforgiveness. It's your prison, not theirs.
There is even a kind of forgiveness that we can direct towards God. We can get angry with God, even if we dare not admit that's how we feel. Our anger at circumstances, as I've said, is really indirect anger at God who brings about our circumstances. We may feel that living as a Christian makes unreasonable demands on us—that, in fact, God makes unreasonable demands on us. So we can't cope and it's God's fault. Though we may shrink from saying it like that. Jonah's anger was this sort of anger, which is perhaps why he never responded to God's questioning about it. If we ever sense that that form of anger is part of our lives, then we need to start looking at our lives from a broader point of view—God's point of view. Putting ourselves in another's shoes always makes forgiveness easier. In many cases it will make us realize (certainly in the case of anger towards God) that there really was nothing to forgive. We have simply misjudged the situation, failed to see the whole picture. In truth it is we who are responding wrongly and not the other person who is acting wrongly. God wants our total trust in Him, and sometimes He will make us very vulnerable (as Jonah in the unshaded heat) in order to get us to that place. It is not ours to be angry (unforgiving) but to learn the lesson of trust—to learn the reality of God's care rather than continue, oblivious and heedless, to our own eventual destruction. We do not do well to be angry at God.
Probably the most difficult form of forgiveness we ever have to practise is the forgiveness of ourselves. We have to realize that the anger we sometimes direct towards ourselves is no less bad than the anger directed towards others. We seem to think that we own ourselves and therefore can mistreat ourselves as much as we like. We're not hurting anyone else, so that's all right. Not so. We were bought with a price, remember, when we became followers of Christ, and for that reason we ought to matter to ourselves. Added to this there is the matter of loving our neighbour as we love ourselves. The Scriptures assume that we will have a certain healthy regard for ourselves, and that is not wrong.
The very essence of love is that we love our neighbour as ourselves (Matt.19:19). It has often been said (by me certainly) that if some of us loved our neighbours as we loved ourselves, they'd be in for a hard time! How many of us, I wonder, have prayed for forgiveness for a sin and yet have not felt forgiven afterwards, though we sincerely sought it. Is it because God hasn't forgiven us? Of course it isn't. Where does God tell us in His Word that He won't forgive us when we ask Him in all sincerity? Where does He tell us of the limitations on His forgiveness in such circumstances?—"No. You've done this before a few times and I forgave you then, now this is too much." If you don't feel forgiven even when you've pleaded for it with your whole heart, then it's possible, not only that you don't fully believe in the willingness of God to forgive you, but also that you haven't forgiven yourself. You're still angry at yourself. You see your "perfect" image of yourself forever tainted by failures, and think you are no good. You can't forgive yourself.
But are we greater than God that we cannot bring ourselves to do what He is willing to do? We really must be longsuffering towards ourselves—especially if we hope to have any success in being longsuffering towards others. If we're over-critical and chronically angry with ourselves, we're not going to project an entirely different attitude towards our neighbours. At least we won't be able to keep it up. As time goes by, the strain shows, and we eventually appear in our true, bitter colours. As the Word says: "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
Go easy on yourself, or you'll find it impossible to go easy on others. You cannot give away what you don't have yourself. You may put on a good show of loving your neighbour while hating yourself, but you're building up a big weight of emotional and physical problems for yourself, and one day the dam may burst—inevitably, I would say.
The trouble is that certain verses of Scripture tend to feed our self-condemnation. Probably because we're over-sensitive when we read them. I would say that most, if not all such verses are not intended for the repentant and conscience-stricken individual, but for the proud and hard-hearted. They don't apply in your case! Or, sometimes, we quite simply misunderstand what is written. Take 1 John 3:20 for example:
"For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things."
The next time you read those words don't say to yourself, "Oh no! If my heart c ondemns me, God is greater than my heart so He condemns me even more: He knows everything, so He knows more than I do how bad I am!" Say to yourself, rather, "If my heart condemns me, God is greater-hearted than I am. He takes all things into account." That's what it really means. Have a look at some alternative translations and you'll see what I mean. We sometimes forget that God is love. He is agape, and has the fruit of the Spirit in no small measure. He is more longsuffering than you might imagine.
We're often wrongly hard on ourselves, and wrongly imagine God to be even harder. That isn't to say He takes a soft line on our failings, but it is to say that He lends a more ready ear to our confessions of those failings than our over-sensitive consciences sometimes allow. What are we trying to tell ourselves anyway?—that by being harder on ourselves than is necessary, by being afraid to accept the forgiveness of God and to enjoy a clear conscience, we stand more chance of entering the Kingdom of God? Do we believe that God is actually going to be pleased with us for doubting Him and blighting our own lives in the process! This 'hair shirt' mentality must surely be abhorrent to the God of love.
We will never have the fruit of the Spirit all the while we fail to be longsuffering and forgiving towards ourselves. Fail to be longsuffering to yourself and you will fail towards others. Fail to be longsuffering towards yourself and you will fail at joy and peace also. All the parts of the fruit overlap and interlink, as you may have noticed from what's been said so far. To borrow some words from the side of the jigsaw puzzle box: they are fully interlocking. The lack of one part of the fruit will generally mean shortages in other areas. Towards the end of the book we'll look at how all the parts of the fruit combine to make the complete and wonderful, truly Christian (Christ-like) character. The puzzle of how to live the Christian life will be solved. At least in theory. The practice is up to us.