Loosed or Bound

Here is a wonderful word...releasing.  Somewhere along the way as we grow up, we start holding on and screaming "mine!"   Even on the emotional and spiritual level we express ourselves in this holding on or not letting go.  There are many reasons for this one of which is resentment.  I see resentment as a flip side of rejection and defensiveness.  Have you ever felt that way?  Yup!  The whole process ties you up in knots and does damage on the physical, emotional, and spiritual levels. 

Matthew 16:19 speaks of a law: "...whatsoever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."  When you put this with Matthew 6:14: "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your Father in heaven will also forgive you," you add a dimension of understanding to the binding and loosening.  I think releasing is the loosening in this context. 

So often we blame the externals of people and their situations for our binding.  It's their fault.  Before you know it, we are bound.  Then when we start having emotional and/or physical symptoms, we look for answers outside of ourselves.  We are so resistant to releasing and being released.  It is a type of self-punishment.  Actually, most of us are not aware of this dynamic.  It is not something that we have been taught even though the Bible is full of principles that allude to this. 

Resentment eats away at our intestines.  In the Chinese perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine the intestines are linked to our lungs as far as having an energetic impact.  This means that the lungs may be manifesting a symptom, and the trigger for that symptom is in the intestinal tract.  In the same way, sinuses/allergies are often triggered by issues in kidney/bladder and the issues related to those systems.  All that drainage may be related to internal weeping.    

Releasing does a body good.  I am seeing that when there is a physical symptom, ask the Lord to show you what is going on in the emotional/spiritual realm.  Ephesians 4:26 says: "And don't sin by letting anger control you.  Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry."   Often we think that is about the other person...the one we are angry at.  It is really about us and self-care.  Not releasing causes us to be sick physically.   You cannot be angry enough to change anything or anyone.  It is slow suicide.  Holding on does not solve anything.  Jesus said to forgive based on "they know not what they do."  Any place of crucifixion is also a place of forgiveness.   

Another issue with not releasing/letting go/forgiving is the matter of "investment in outcome."  This is pretty big.  It is thinking we have forgiven and moved on all the while we want the "other" to understand something about this situation.  We teachers in the crowd especially want everyone to learn the appropriate lesson, and that lesson is what we believe.  This is investment in outcome.  When our forgiveness or letting go has this string attached, we have turned the whole process into a business transaction.  Listen to your own self-talk.  Are you trying to convince someone of their wrongness or your rightness.  Is there a message to someone that keeps going around your mind.  What is unresolved with yourself...it doesn't matter about the other person.  They are not loosing sleep over it.  

 

Do you want to be right, or do you want to be righteous?  We have to hear the message to us in these situations.  God is calling us to come up higher than the expectations of this earth.  We search for fairness in Earth School.  It really does not exist.  We want understanding and appreciation.  We want to do something good for others...we think.  When it gets right down to it, our good deeds may be a way of soothing our wounds.  We are buying affirmation, importance, rightness, significance, etc.   Jesus says that they will know we are Christians by the love we have for one another.  We cannot fully love unless we are releasing what is binding us and others.