Did you ever find yourself in a heated conversation with someone from work, to the point of your getting hotter and hotter under the collar?  You get more and more angry; to the point of your emotions actually causing you to sit up in bed!  In bed! What on earth are you doing having a conversation/argument with someone from work, in bed?  Then you look at the clock and it tells you it’s 3:00am!  The other person is at their home, in their own bed, snoring away in blissful ignorance of the third-world-war taking place in your head and in your emotional field.

You’ve tried praying and you’ve tried ignoring; you’ve tried pretending but it is simply un-ending; you take this person around inside your head day after day. Not only will the thoughts not go away, they actually progress into graphic anger-fantasies, even to the point of murder.  Deep within, there is a feeling towards your work colleague that continually stirs and will not rest. 

Each time you think of that person your feelings (sentiments) react. There is a repeating feeling toward them and it seems to have power of its own, because no matter how you try, you cannot stop the thoughts, the feelings and the internal personal warfare. The repeating-feeling, aka  repeating-sentiment, aka re-sentiment, is a driving force. Welcome to the engine room of addiction, depression and spiritual deterioration.   

Resentments are known as the ‘number 1 offender’ within Christianity and within recovery circles. They are an underlying cause of many forms of spiritual decay. Many mental and physical ills can be frequently linked to this unhealthy condition. No doubt others have harmed us, and we feel that we have a legitimate right to feel resentful.  However, resentment does not hurt anyone but God or punish anyone but ourselves.  We cannot hold on to resentments and expect to find growth or healing at the same time.

Resentments have to be released and can only be done so by exposure. Just like a negative film being developed in a darkroom, so too are negative emotions developed in the darkroom of our hearts. Just as turning the light on will always destroy the negative film, in the same way the truth will destroy the negative feelings that drive us into isolation. It may, however, mean some form of confrontation with the other person, and this is where denial takes over. Fear will try to prevent us from making any confrontation, telling us that ‘confrontation will only make things worse, and besides, they hurt me, why should I have to do the confronting’? 

So we stay trapped by our own sentimata (own word - to denote the self-styled martyr). I was silently taught to sweep my feelings under the carpet as a growing child, by a culture that did not express feelings to one another. By my teenage years, I had an elephant under my carpet. What a relief when the mind and mood-altering chemicals came along, I actually felt a false sense of freedom.   

Learning to deal with resentments in a healthy way is an important part of anyone’s walk with God, and is an essential skill for anyone wanting recovery from chemical dependency.  Records, both secular and Christian, show that all lasting recoveries from chemical dependencies and depressions etc share one common denominator: a healthy spiritual life.  Simply put, those who walk with God walk in freedom.
Resentments will always spring out of sin - either the sins I committed or sins committed against me.  But whatever the formula, my internal spiritual condition is my responsibility. Nothing or no-one outside of me can ever deliver me from the war within me. My internal warfare is primarily between me and the Lord within. 

Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll never solved anything. “Christ within, the Hope of Glory” Colossians 1:27   Now that’s healing.