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Resentment Traps

Have your sorrows and setbacks caused you to resent God, growing bitter toward Him because He seemingly stood aside as harm came your way? If so, you are far from alone in feeling that way.

Yet today, I need to tell you that when a person is resentful of God, they become ensnared, trapped, and tripped up. Resentment works as a roadblock placed in your way to impede your progress.

A person who resents God has come to the point of distrusting the validity and credibility of the One he or she ought to follow. In short, it is a disapproval of the wisdom of God behind His decisions concerning your life and future. Ultimately, if you resent God you will be roadblocked from, at the very least, acknowledging His divine authority in your life, let alone responding in agreement with His will.

Resentment traps come in all shapes and sizes. The enemy of your soul is a clever hunter and baits the traps with tasty trifles of self-pity and feelings of disappointment. He seeks a platform to scandalize you (entrap you) by accusing Jesus’s ministry toward you: “Just look at what a dedicated servant you have been to Christ, and what do you have to show for it? Now that the pressure is on, where is He? He led you down this dead-end street and then abandoned you. When are you going to wake up to the fact He’s uninterested in meeting your needs? He’s really treating you poorly. You’re really going to have to go it alone—that’s right!—self-sufficiency is your only hope of survival.” Sound familiar?

Though you may not perceive it, you are actually surrounded by subtle resentment traps, carefully placed snares that seek to ambush any hope of recovery. In fact, you may already be ensnared and don’t know it. You will know if you have tripped the trigger of a resentment trap whenever you have the slightest uncertainty—a kind of low-grade humming vacillation—about God’s boundless love for you. When you tend to pause at the point of trusting, the sharp teeth of a resentment trap may have already pierced your soul and indecisiveness is setting up the final roadblock to your resilience.

Where’s the escape? The truth that Christ suffers when you suffer should remove any present or future resentment toward the One who “sympathize[s] with our weaknesses” (Heb. 4:15).

Check out your attitude toward God today. How has resentment toward Him tripped you up?