REFUSE TO CARRY A GRUDGE!!

The word "Grudge" is defined in the dictionary as:
"A feeling of resentment or ill will over some grievance, or to harbor resentment".
To "hold or carry a grudge" would then mean: holding onto or carrying around a feeling of resentment over some grievance. In other words, an un-forgiving attitude leading to bitterness. This is a very burdensome way to live, yet so many people choose to carry a grudge.
Our physical bodies reflect a positive or negative thought life, and the grudge, being a negative attitude, will reveal itself in our speech and actions. We will become negative, bitter, un-happy people, our faces will show it, and our bodies will suffer from it.
The word 'grudge' is found quite often in the scriptures and we are warned against grudging. (Leviticus 19:18, James 5:9, 1 Peter 4:9) The scriptures refer instead to loving your neighbor as yourself and forgiving others as you have been forgiven by God so as to prevent any bitterness from growing. (Galatians 5:14, Matthew 6:12, Ephesians 4:31, Hebrews 12:15 )
What we are to do then is be patient with one another and forgiving. When someone hurts us we are not to "carry or hold on to a grudge" but we are to forgive them and drop the offense. As long as we hold onto that feeling of resentment we will live the offense over and over every day and we will become bitter and unhappy.
In Joshua 1:8, it says: " Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful." The word, 'meditate', means to mutter over and over, or rehearse. The opposite is true, if we are rehearsing or meditating on the hurt, it will do the opposite of what meditating on the Word of God will do, instead of making you prosperous and successful, meditating on the hurt will make you bitter, broke and unsuccessful. When something is done to us that we feel was unjust, we are not to "carry around a grudge" but we are to let it go and so release the burden of it all.
It may not be easy, it may take some time, but we need to make an effort toward reconciliation. Even if the person/people for whom we once carried the grudge, are still acting ugly toward us, we will be set free because we have let it go, and letting it go, means never going back and picking it up again. We are to walk away from it, leaving it behind and never looking back at it. If we can do that, then we can go forward and not be held back by holding a grudge which will get heavier over time. Forgiving someone is not condoning what they did to us, but it is the first step in setting us free from the burden of carrying around the offense. Forgiveness will release healing into our lives and keep bitterness from growing.
An old saying goes something like this: “It doesn't take a very big person to carry a grudge.” “Something else about holding grudges…if you hang on to them too long, you’ll find that they end up holding you!”
I remember watching an old sitcom called MASH, where Hawkeye Pierce gave a little spiel about not how he refuses to carry a gun. It was cleverly put and sort of stuck in my mind. While meditating on this topic, God gave me a different take on that spiel, so that when the enemy whispers to my mind to carry a grudge…I just look him in the “Hawkeye” and say:
I will not carry a grudge.... I’ll carry you in the Spirit, I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, Carrie Nation, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I’ll karaoke, and I'll even carry a gun, if someone shows me how, but I refuse to carry a grudge!

Clipart taken from "IheartGod", parts of this message were taken from "The Hub", "What is a Grudge" written by: The Roman Catholic Missionary Seminary; the quote from MASH has been altered to fit my situation, but the original comes from "Officer of the Day," original airdate 24 September 1974, written by Laurence Marks, directed by Hy Averback