Love is not resentful
1 Corinthians 13:5
Social Media becomes a trap for those who harbor resentment. Everything is recorded for you, convenient for you to revisit and relive. Every bad thing someone said, every insensitive comment, and every offensive post can be dug up and resurface. Even with the ‘delete’ feature, our minds connect names, images, and ways of speaking with past events. Social media thrives on name and brand recognition, and capitalizes on association of ideas and images. This makes it hard to let go of offenses. This attribute of Love is best connected to forgiveness. While it is not healthy to ignore the past, we must all strive to do better at not holding grudges or chips on our shoulder. We need to improve letting relationships move forward. It is tempting to avoid resentment by just blocking someone so we will never encounter them again. Ironically this is exactly what resentment looks like: ‘someone wronged me therefore I shall never trust them again and never establish a relationship with them again.’ There is, surely, a time and place for disfellowship of evil, for removal of temptation and those who cause it, and setting a certain ‘tone’ in our social settings. These things may call for removing individuals who work against these goals. But take care that your motives are not about blocking any opportunities for a renewed relationship. If someone repents, changes, or works with you in your goals, should you not accept them back? Make sure there is still opportunity for this. Make sure you don’t shut all doors because you were offended. Don’t hold on to comments which someone makes, looking for ways to bring them back up, take them out of context, or twist them in their face. Don’t think poorly of your social contacts for times which they may not have meant what they said, were under strain or duress, or were ignorant. Sometimes you just misunderstood. Sometimes they just misunderstood. Don’t permanently look down your nose at them. We want to provide the chance for them to be ‘redeemed’ in our eyes rather than resented permanently.
Next: Joy in Evil