My messy heart!

This has potential to be an extremely scatterbrained, all over the place, messy post! I have just come inside from doing my bible study. I have just started a bible study called "Stepping up" about the Psalms of Ascent (Songs that people sang on their way to the temple to meet with God, and also when they were freed from captivity to another people). It is Psalms 120-134 I believe. Anyways I bought a book years ago called "Reflections on the Psalms" by C.S. Lewis....I got it for super cheap on Amazon but I have just never happened to read it but I thought it would go perfect with the study I'm doing..........and as I just finished reading the 2nd chapter...I know that God meant it for me...tonight. It has absolutely blown my mind!
The book is composed of different chapters...each one talks about the themes of the Psalms such as the judgement of God, cursings, the beauty of God...things like that. I just read the chapter on "Cursings". I can honestly say.....I've never read anything like this chapter before in any book anywhere..... (I am interjecting this after finishing the book. One thing to be careful of with this book is that there are some times in his writing that he says things about the Bible as if it were incorrect or not all God's word, but he says it in a very "smart" way...so it would be easy to skip over and take this as truth and IT IS NOT. So all that to say, I got a lot from that one chapter...but the rest of the book honestly didn't live up to me.)
Some of the Psalms are written in a very vengeful tone, people who have been oppressed, held down, hurt, looked over and are angry! They heap horrible coursing's on their enemies for sinning against them and God. I've never really noticed it before.... Here is one example they cursed their enemy with.
Psalm 109:10 May his children be wandering beggars, may they be driven from their ruined homes. (the whole chapter is full of this kind of talk) They were hurt and wronged and they were bitter towards their enemy!

Check out some of these quotes from "Reflections on the Psalms"

"For here one saw a feeling we all know only too well, Resentment, expressing itself with perfect freedom, without disguise, without self consciousness, without shame-" C.S. Lewis

"It seemed to me that, seeing in them hatred undisguised, I saw also the natural result of injuring a human being." C.S. Lewis

"But just as the natural result of throwing a lighted match into a pile of shavings is to produce a fire-through damp or the intervention of some more sensible person may prevent it- so the natural result of cheating a man, or "keeping him down" or neglecting him, is to arouse resentment; that is to impose upon him the temptation of becoming what the Psalmist were when they wrote the vindictive passages." C.S. Lewis

I am absolutely getting somewhere with this! Have you ever been wronged? Have you ever been hurt, felt resentment or bitterness?

It is like throughout some of the Psalms there is a painted picture of what happens in a mans heart who is wronged.

As a Christian though...we all know Jesus died and forgave us all of our sin....He wiped away all our debt to him, how can we not forgive others?

For some reason...I have had this notion that when someone has hurt me in the past...wronged me....that once I forgave them....really forgave them, that I should be healed....completely free of bitterness or any hurt. There are whole classes based around being healed from these past hurts....(Don't hear me wrong...I know that God came to heal and to really heal...but we aren't perfect yet!) ....but listen to this please!

"There is no use in talking as if forgiveness were easy. We all know the old joke, 'You've given up smoking once; I've given it up a dozen times.' In the same way I could say of a certain man, "Have I forgiven him for what he did that day? I've forgiven him more times than I can count." For we find that the work of forgiveness has to be done over and over again. We forgive, we mortify our resentment; a week later some chain of thought carries us back to the original offense and we discover the old resentment blazing away as if nothing had been done about it at all. We need to forgive our brother seven times seven not only for 490 offenses but for one offense." C.S. Lewis

When I read this.....it was like fireworks went off.....you mean...just because I forgave someone once and it comes up again in my heart...I am not crazy! But, God is going to give me the grace...each time it comes up to forgive again! Whew hoo!!! God doesn't tell us to forgive 70 x 7 if he isn't gonna give us the grace to do it!It was the most freeing thing to know that I don't have to stuff feelings down like there is something wrong with me telling myself "why cant you let it go...you already forgave this?!" Satan can no longer bring me down telling me I'm not a good christian because I have had to forgive for the same thing more than once.....Oh hallelujah....God will help my heart forgive each time it comes back to me! Thank you God! :) But my prayer is....that one day certain things may not come up again...that I wont find anymore feelings of resentment...but until then...God will give me grace to forgive one more time in my heart:) Thank you Lord!

Here is the parable that explains why we should forgive and how many times:

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

21Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"
22Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.[f]
23"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents[g] was brought to him. 25Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' 27The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.[h] He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.
29"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
30"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' 34In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."


I know this has been a messy post...but I hope that maybe someone else needed to hear that....God has forgiven us a great debt... even if we find ourselves forgiving the same offense in our heart over and over..... His love covers a multitude of sins :)

Love you and goodnight!

Sarah