Timebomb

“Timebomb”

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12: 17-21)

Know anyone who’s a ticking time bomb? They look pretty normal, but then you raise a certain subject, or look a certain way and then … KABOOM! They explode. You’ve been there, haven’t you? Maybe it’s a comment, a word or even a look. Maybe even a grudge.

 The dictionary defines a grudge as a “cherished dislike.” Interesting. Cherished dislike. OK, now it’s one thing to cherish something you like, like you cherish your wife or your husband, or you cherish your kids, or you cherish God. But cherishing something you don’t like? That’s oxymoronic. You know, words in combination that don’t make sense like working vacation, or found missing, or jumbo shrimp; maybe even pretty ugly, or original copies, or only choice. A cherished dislike: a grudge we despise but hang onto, anyway.

Ahithophel was a walking time bomb: normal under the circumstances and a good friend of King David, but wound tighter than a drum and ready to explode. Now, it wasn’t that Ahithophel was unintelligent or anything. In fact, he was an extremely bright man. The Bible says that “… the advice Ahithophel gave was like that of one who inquires of God.” (2 Sam. 16:23) In other words, when it came to the advice category, he was your go-to guy; talking with Ahithophel was like talking to God. And this guy was David’s close counselor, too. So, anytime the king had a problem, he’d call for Ahithophel. Of course, this kind of access to David and the kingdom gave Ahithophel huge props. It’d be like the President asking you for advice on the Middle East. But even smart people can do some really dumb things sometimes.

Ahithophel, as wise as he was, was a time bomb ready to blow. Fact is, he was carrying a huge grudge. He was full of bitterness, anger and hostility because of a past experience from which he could not recover. So, what was his problem, anyway? Better yet, “What’s yours?” Is there something in your life that’s building up like TNT? You know, just one false move and, BOOM, you explode? Maybe someone injured you; maybe someone said something about you that was completely false and put you in a very bad light. Is there someone, or something, in your life that could really set you off? Well, at least think about it. But then again, maybe you’re just not that kind of person. OK, well that’s my grudge, but back to the story.

Absalom, David’s son, had rebelled against David and had stolen the hearts of the people of Israel by promising them everything under the sun so long as they would make him king. (Sound familiar? Sorry, but political promises in exchange for votes have a long and sordid history) Amazingly, Absalom was doing this right under his dad’s nose. But after 4 years of electioneering, kissing babies, undermining David as king and showing off to everyone, Absalom said to his dad, "Let me go to Hebron and fulfill a promise I made to the Lord.” (2 Sam. 15:7) But that was just a ruse. Because when Absalom arrived at Hebron, just 20 miles away, he sent secret messengers to the tribes of Israel with this memo: "As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpets, then say, ‘Absalom is king in Hebron.’" (2 Sam. 15:10)

In other words, Absalom didn’t go to Hebron to fulfill any vow. He went there to orchestrate a coup. Kill the legitimate king and Absalom would be the new one. So, there’s Absalom in Hebron, starting a rebellion, gathering an army, organizing his cabinet, reaching out to everyone who’d support him in preparation for his march on Jerusalem and that’s when he makes the call – to Ahithophel, David’s counselor, to join the mutiny. (2 Sam. 15:12)

Now, why in the world would he do that? I mean, Ahithophel was supposedly a smart guy, and he’d been David’s counselor forever, even serving in David’s cabinet. Yet Absalom reached out and then into David’s inner circle, the ones with all the power, and Absalom gets one of them to be a Judas. Really? Yeah, because if Absalom could attract some of David’s counselors, especially the one whose advice was like hearing from God, then everybody’d think, "Well, I guess we’d better get on the right side of this one; even Ahithophel’s bailing.”

But how’d Absalom manage to do that? Ahithophel was certainly smart enough to know this wasn’t a sure thing. I mean, he could have consulted with himself, right? But, Absalom knew something about Ahithophel. He knew that Ahithophel was a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode. You see, over the years, Absalom had had the opportunity to discover that Ahithophel was carrying a grudge, a “cherished dislike,” against David. And this grudge likely caused Ahithophel to abandon reason, and David, for the enemy’s camp.

So, what was the grudge? What would cause Ahithophel to abandon his long-time friend, David? Well, putting together a few verses from the Old Testament, we can see it for ourselves. In 2 Sam. 23:34, we’re given a list of David’s mighty men and it mentions Eliam, the son of Ahithophel. Then, in 2 Sam. 11:2 we read, “David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” Get it? Yep, Bathsheba was Ahithophel’s granddaughter, taken from her husband, Uriah, who was then murdered at David’s command to cover up a pregnancy – David’s love child! (Who needs Soaps, anyway?)

Now, it’s pretty likely that Bathsheba eventually forgave her new husband, David. And maybe Eliam, Bathsheba’s father, forgave David, too. And, we certainly know that God forgave David. But Ahithophel, the grandfather, never let it go. He never forgave David for that sin. He carried a grudge, and for years and years it festered in him until it finally exploded when he had the opportunity in Absalom’s rebellion to abandon David.

Absalom’s rebellion eventually led to Absalom chasing David out of Jerusalem. And once David was out of Jerusalem, Absalom asked Ahithophel what he should do next. Ahithophel’s advice was, among other things, to give Ahithophel twelve thousand men to pursue and kill David, and only David, immediately. (Wow. Now that’s a grudge) But instead of following Ahithophel’s advice, Absalom decided to ask somebody else, Hushai, who was actually David’s friend who’d stayed behind in Jerusalem, as a double-agent, to frustrate Ahithophel’s counsel. Hushai’s advice was that Absalom should wait and then make a full-scale attack on David in his own stronghold. All of Absalom’s men, including Absalom, agreed with Hushai. (What is it about men and their ego?) And that was the end of Ahithophel’s advice.

So, what does a wise guy do when his advice is rejected? “When Ahithophel saw that his advice had not been followed he saddled his donkey and set out for his house in his hometown. He put his house in order and then hanged himself.” (2 Sam. 17:23) Ahithophel knew the cause was doomed. He knew that David would be able to rally the troops and, in the end, win the battle. You see, the end of any grudge, the end of carrying bitterness in our hearts results in a total collapse. The thing is, it doesn’t destroy the other person that we’re seeking to hurt. It destroys us, instead.

If we’re not able to experience forgiveness, and extend that same forgiveness to others, we don’t destroy others – we destroy ourselves. Forgiveness is not something we give to people when they come crawling back to us on their knees. Forgiveness is not something we extend to people when they finally realize that they were wrong and we were right and then beg us to forgive them. Forgiveness is an attitude toward people that demonstrates that we don’t hold grudges, that we don’t carry bitterness, that – like them – we’ve been forgiven, too.

Bitterness is a poison, and it’s just like a boomerang: you throw it, and it might feel good when you let it go, but it comes back and cuts your heart out. Carrying a grudge destroys us. It doesn’t destroy others. For instance, imagine I cut my hand and I put a band-aid on it. I then show it to my wife, Sandy, and she says, "It’s alright, don’t worry; it’s just a little cut." Then, the next day, I take the band-aid off and show it to her again. "Wow, it’s healing pretty good,” she says. But then I say, "No, it’s not," and proceed to peel off the scab, reopen the cut and squeeze it until it bleeds. "Now what do you think?” Shocked, Sandy says, "Uh, yeah, that’s pretty bad after all. Let me take care of you (you big baby)." Or, maybe she just says, “You’re crazy.”

You see, I wanted some sympathy, some attention, and I finally got it. But at what price? By re-opening a wound that, through God’s grace, was sure to heal. Now, I’d never do that with a cut, but I’ll do that with an emotional injury. And why do we do that? Why, when we’re emotionally injured by someone, do we then go to somebody else and keep reopening the wound? Keep showing it off so that the infection will grow? You know, do that enough and you could die from the infection and not from the wound itself. And do that enough with an emotional injury and you could lose your spiritual life to the infection called sin.

So, don’t nurse a grudge. Don’t allow the poison of the past to pollute your present. Whether the past sins are your own, or whether they’re others, accept and experience God’s grace. When we understand God’s forgiveness of our sins, we are then able to extend that forgiveness to others – even when they don’t ask for it. We’re forgiving them not for them, but for us. We are expressing to them the grace of God in the same way God expressed His grace to us: by dying for us while we were yet sinners. And so we, in turn, are able to die for others, to forgive others, to live gracefully for others, even while they’re sinners. (Romans 5:8)

OK. But didn’t Ahithophel have a right to be offended? Absolutely. And didn’t David do a horrible thing? Yes, he did. And didn’t Ahithophel have a right to be injured? Unquestionably. But did he have a right to be unforgiving and to carry that bitterness throughout his whole life? No, not if he was going to experience what God wants us to experience. God forgave David. Ahithophel, apparently, never did.

The best way to defuse a grudge is to forgive before the other person asks, even if it’s never asked. Try this. Think of someone against whom you may be holding a grudge. It may be a broken or estranged relationship, for instance. Now, think of some way you can defuse that ticking time bomb. For instance, you could send that person a note, or make a phone call; maybe even invite them to dinner.

Truth is you’ll eventually die from an infection if you constantly reopen your physical wounds and expose them to the elements. So, instead, allow the cleansing grace of God to heal those spiritual and emotional wounds that trouble you. And keep that band-aid of His grace on the injury; it’ll heal in time. Oh, and then consider that if He did it for you, perhaps you should do the same for others. 

Or, is your grudge bigger than your God?

Grace,

Randy