part 2 of the “Cactus” series
In a previous post, I talked about the older brother in the story of the Prodigal Son. In that post, we talked about how he held a grudge against his younger brother for so long it was starting to hurt him more than his brother. I used the illustration of holding onto a cactus and refusing to let it go and how that only hurts you. For this post, I wanted to tell you a story of how I had to put down cactus and walk away.
Many years ago, I had someone make a promise to me. This promise was meant to be kept as all promises are. But in 2017, they decided that they no longer wanted to keep the promise they had made. I am sure that you have been there before. I am sure that you have had someone break a promise to you. But certain promises mean more than others and therefore hurt more when they are broken.
The promise that was made to me and then broken hurt quite a lot. The more I thought about it, the more upset it made me and the madder I got. The more I thought about it, the more I didn’t understand why they broke their promise. The more I thought about it, the tighter I squeezed the cactus. I told people that I would never trust a promise like that again and if I did it would be a long time. Over the next few months, I just kept holding tight to that cactus. Until God, one day, knocked me upside my head and asked me “What are you doing?”
It was at the moment that realized what I was doing. I was holding onto something that was hurting me only. The person that hurt me had moved on from it and didn’t know or care that I was holding a grudge. Isn’t that what’s funny about grudges? We get so upset about something that someone did to us and we hold on to it for weeks, months, or (in the case of the older brother) years. The longer we hold onto the cactus refusing to let go, the more it hurts us, and the harder it can be to let go.
God got my attention after only a few months. He told me to just “set the cactus down and walk away” and that is what I did. As soon as I did set the cactus down, I was able to see things differently and I moved on with my life and my life got better and better. Doing this, however, does not mean that what was done to me was a good thing and that the pain that it caused wasn’t real. This also does not mean that whatever you choose to set down and walk away from didn’t leave scars. When we set it down and walk away, we are opening ourselves up to the ability to move on and to no longer let that cactus cause us pain any longer.
There is another story in the Bible that involves two brothers. These brothers are Jacob and Esau and an interesting note for this story... the younger brother did something to the older brother. Sound familiar? Jacob had stolen Esau’s blessing from Isaac in an act of deceit. Esau was so furious and was going to kill Jacob. So, Rebekah told Jacob to run away until his brother had calmed down (Genesis 27). They would meet again one day, but the result was different in this story.
Jacob had heard that his brother Esau was coming to meet him (Genesis 32:6). Jacob sent gifts and other things to try and butter Esau up thinking that he was still mad at him and going to kill him. But when Esau saw Jacob this is what happened:
“Then Esau ran to meet him and embraced him, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. And they both wept.”
Genesis 33:4 NLT
Esau had done something that the older brother in the story of the Prodigal Son did not do. Esau had set the cactus down and walked away. Esau had already forgiven his brother and let the grudge go long before this meeting. Because he was able to do this, he was able to restore his relationship with Jacob and move past what he had done.
This is the same thing that I have experienced in my life when I have chosen to set it down and walk away. It doesn’t change what was done to me, but it allowed peace to come into my life, and then I could move forward. Sometimes setting down the cactus and walking away means that the other person involved never does their part in the forgiveness process. It is quite possible that they may never do their part. But you can do yours. You can do it for you. You can set it down and walk away so it does not continue to control your life.
When we choose to hold onto the cactus, it begins to hurt us only. I encourage you to set it down and walk away.
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