Have you ever spited someone? Have you ever been spited?
Spite is a toxic emotion and sometimes leads to reprehensible behaviors with destruction in its wake. Relationships typically start out well, but something eventually goes wrong in many, leaving one or both people hurt or traumatized. Depending on how wrong things go — and how vindictive someone is — those who get hurt sometimes want to exact revenge. This is spite.
https://imgur.com/gallery/wlYxk
“Hurt people hurt people,” goes the saying and this adage has been proven true millions upon millions of times throughout the ages because many people aren’t humble enough to admit their faults and refuse to apologize when they’ve hurt someone — usually because they just aren’t sorry.
Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash
This is a typical situation spiteful people find themselves in as their negative habits command continuous repercussions — while they offer their fruitless apologies.
Spiteful people rarely see their behaviors as anything but necessary for the preservation of their sense of self, so they seek to justify their pride and self-righteousness at any cost, ensuring the spiteful person remains on a perpetual hamster wheel of injury and spite.
DRAMA QUEENS and GAME PLAYERS
We human beings love drama. Sometimes we have gone to great lengths to develop situations for effect and not harmony. There are plenty of Drama Queens and Game Players in the world. (We need a whole lot less!)
We have all played the hero or the villain at different points in our lives. However, I have asked, ‘What caused such a deep level of depreciation of self for me to arrive at the point where spiting my dad seemed like a logical thing to do?’ Let’s explore that.
One day, about thirty-or-so years ago, I said out loud, ‘I’m going to throw away my life so my dad can’t draw any joy from having me as a son.’ Imagine the bondage such a vow brought onto me. Imagine the legal rights the devil had to attack me as a result!
My dad left us when I was 6 months old. My mom blamed me for his departure/their divorce. A narcissist accepts no blame. This led me to believe from an early age that I was the problem and not them.
I tried my best to overcome this perceived deficit, but the disadvantages I experienced seemed to confirm to me that I was cursed. As I grew up, this distorted self-image further led me to believe I wasn’t ever going to amount to much, so I decided to throw away my life to spite my dad for having left us and leaving me to have to deal with my family; his family.
The day I crashed (nervous breakdown), I knew right away there were some things I would have to address and the Father Wound was one of the things at the top of the list right next to Mother Wound. For the longest time, I refused to acknowledge it as a problem. I had become as broken as my parents.
Photo by Gustavo Fring from Pexels
I didn’t want to deal with it and, I thought/hoped as long as it stayed buried in a shallow grave in the back of my mind, it wasn’t going to harm me. I realized just how fierce was the pain and I had no idea of how much it truly affected me until I let it go.
I had no idea the impact the decision to spite my dad would make on my life — and heart — and what a wedge it drove between me and God. As our Heavenly Father, God’s perfect love is often misunderstood and rejected because of confusion about what true, perfect love really looks like and feels like. Furthermore, any brokenness in a relationship with an earthly dad can cause someone to project those fallen traits onto our Holy Father.
Loving our neighbors as ourselves doesn’t begin with others, it starts with us. However, “You can’t give what you don’t have”. If you have little-to-no love for others, it is going to show in everything you do.
““You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.””
Many people have tried to manage these feelings to maintain the semblance of a healthy life/mind instead of handing them over to Jesus so He can deal with them for us. There is so much needless suffering in the world today! Your problems, sicknesses, and disabilities belong to Jesus. He paid for them on the Cross. Give them to their Rightful Owner! And leave them there.
Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash
A RESULT OF UNFORGIVENESS
I learned to be a chameleon of sorts trying to make people happy as I manipulated them into thinking I cared when all I wanted was what they could give me. I wasn’t always that way. I honestly tried being a “nice guy,” but some girls wouldn’t give me attention unless I played the “bad boy.”
As a result of this method of thought, I had a pervasive, deep-seated idea that if people got to know the real me, they wouldn’t like me. However, at the same time, I had no idea how much I was allowing other peoples’ words and behaviors to control me; I became tense, paranoid, and reactionary as I had to always be on my toes and remember what I told people so I would not be found out.
When you’re living as a victim instead of a victor, your life is reactionary whether you like it or not.
“Forgiving = Proactive
Unforgiving = Reactive”
Just as in many facets of life, the way out of a negative is with a positive. So, to use reason, the way out of a reactionary lifestyle is to repent of, renounce, and reject the spiteful attitude.
“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”
Refusing to forgive and release the people who have hurt us keeps us in pain and, many times, we have internalized that pain instead of releasing it and have tried to lock it away in the closet, sweep it under the rug, etc. However, none of this has ever proven effective in our journey to good mental health.
Why has mankind continued to engage with such useless and unfruitful activities such as spite? Because mankind remains stuck in sin and the reprehensible behaviors that define, shape, and reveal the true nature of the kingdom of Hell.
As long as sinful mankind chooses to remain identified with Satan, misidentification and delusion will be the case. However, as Children of God, we have a Savior who knows everything and wants to transform us from dead in our sins, lost, and broken into alive in Christ, guided, and whole. Jesus dealt with ALL sins on the cross of Calvary and is forever seated at the right hand of Father God in glory ministering to us and fighting on our behalf in the Courts of Heaven.
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”
Choosing not to forgive someone is an act of spite. It is vengeful at the root and it is akin to “drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” If you have chosen to spite someone — anyone, even yourself —know for sure you must release and relinquish this into Jesus’ hands. It’s the only way I’ve found.
https://dailyverse.knowing-jesus.com/james-4-17
CONCLUSION
Spite never “evened the score” or assuaged our fears or prevented us from being hurt again. It never gained us freedom from the pain and trauma that balled our fists in spite in the first place. Fighting fire with fire isn’t Jesus’ way, it’s Satan’s. To be sure, spite imbalanced the score in the devil’s favor and affirmed our fears. Spite doesn’t help us be the person God made us to be and it sure doesn’t help us fulfill His purposes for our lives.
Jesus calls us to live with compassion and kindness, so let’s commit ourselves to getting rid of spiteful thoughts and actions and allow Him to heal us from the traumas and walk out Father God’s perfect will.
God bless you!
Prayer
Holy Father God, I approach the Throne of Grace and Mercy in need of grace and mercy. I appreciate how You have guided me into these articles of freedom. I ask, Lord, that You would reveal the depth of my sin of spite. I decide, today, (say the date) to stop spiting all people who have harmed me because it is sinful and it has harmed me often more than I have ever gotten any revenge. I choose to release these people (name them) from my heart and I willfully relinquish them into Your loving hands for discipline and correction. I also ask that You would do the same for me so all hurts and hang-ups are found and flushed out of my soul forever. Please help me to walk out this new freedom and healing as I walk in faith with You. In Jesus’ mighty name, amen!