AA's Tools for Dealing With Resentment: Broken and Bankrupt

Members of AA would offer me a bunch of "tools" for overcoming resentment.

Often, I would sort through all of these skills, and more often than not the resentments never went away.

The real problem for all of us is "self", we are beings in sin, and we cannot perfect ourselves, we cannot reform ourselves, we cannot cleanse the dead flesh.

Only in Christ risen, seated in honor at the right hand of the Father, do we receive the righteousness and grace. Resentment, like alcohol abuse, dissension among others, and adulteries, are all works of the flesh.

If we still struggle with anger, if we are still dealing with lustful thinking in our lives or mood swings unending, that is a mere signal that we are still trusting in ourselves instead of resting in God's righteousness.

Looking at our thoughts and our feelings makes us look at ourselves, and we end up sinking in a pit of self-pity.

Here is a list of some of the "tools" that members of AA are instructed to use:

1. Make a gratitude list.

How many lists did I make in my life. Yet no matter how many times I looked at what I had, I just could not shake away the upset of the people who had hurt me in my life. Every good and perfect gift comes from God (James 1: 17). "God" is more than some "Higher Power" according to our understanding. God is the Father of Lights, in whom there is no shadowing turning. Everything comes from Him. In His Light is nothing but grace and righteousness.

Often, a gratitude list focuses on ourselves, and when we look at ourselves, we find ourselves getting resentful all over again. A "gratitude list" does not solve the pressing problems in front of me. God offers a better reason to be thankful:

"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1: 7)

This blood speaks better things. Everlasting righteousness is one of them (Daniel 9: 24), but the writer of Hebrews explains further:

"And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." (Hebrews 12:24)

God outlined the promises in the Old Testament which are revealed to us in the New:

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

"And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)

He gives us guidance from within, so now every believer in the Body of Christ no longer has to look to himself for the way to go in the world. He will be a God to everyone of us -- meaning that He is taking care of everything. We will not need to run to other people to help us know God, because He Himself will teach us more of Himself. All we have to do is ask (Ephesians 1: 16-21).

2. Think of all the things that you have gotten away with.

I have indeed gotten away with many things, but man's selfish nature is such that even though we have been granted a reprieve for many things, a sense of debt for what we suffered, for what we let someone "get away" with. Only when we understand how nothing that we have done could ever pay the eternal sin-death that we owe God, only then do we break free of thinking that we have paid our  own way and expect others to pay for theirs. Recounting what we have gotten away with can also bring forth a sense of guilt and fear instead, and so we leap from one prison to the other instead of breaking free from the prison of self in which our fallen bodies and minds demand a satisfaction which we can never earn in ourselves.

If we really want to understand what we have gotten away with, let us look to the Cross:

"13And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it." (Colossians 2: 13-15)

Jesus did not just die for all our sins, but by dying on the Cross He annulled the law, which was forever against by fulfilling the law and according to us His righteousness, the perfect standing before God, in which no sin conscience would ever again remain within us. The Devil's only too left is to shame us and defame us when we have not kept God's law, yet Jesus is now our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1: 30), and in Christ we have been made the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5: 21)

Now, this righteousness is imputed to our spirit man, but these fallen bodies with a fallen mind will still tempt us to "get even" or to "make something right" in our lives.

Instead of trying to make our feelings stop, Paul tells us to reckon ourselves dead to the flesh (Romans 6: 11), and instead to open our eyes to Christ, who is our life (Colossians 3: 1-4)

3. Remember that they are not getting away with anything.

There is great solace in this truth. I have witnessed in my own life many people who have harmed me. Yet even this truth will mean nothing to the carnal man who walks by sight and not by faith (2 Corinthians 5: 7). Only by faith to do we receive that all our sins are forgiven (Ephesians 2: 4-8), will we then have the faith to believe:

"Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." (Romans 12: 19)

You have to know that you are "Beloved" first, and we are accepted (lit. made gracious) in the Beloved, who is Christ (Ephesians 1: 6)

Yes, those who have harmed us do not get away with anything, but first we must believe that because Jesus Christ died for all our sins, then we can rest assured that all our sins have been paid for, and we then have the faith to believe that He has taken care of everything else.

And here's the last one that many AA members love to chant:

4. At least you're sober.

Sobriety is not enough, and never can be. Man is meant for a lot more than "not drinking." Life is more than "not doing", but about living out the Life that God wants to give us through His Son.

For many years, I would work the program, go through the tools, try to overcome these resentments over and over. We do not overcome anything. In Christ alone do we overcome, and through Him we are guaranteed to be more than overcomers (Romans 8: 37)

In Christ, then, the very notion of resentment gives way to resting in God's righteousness and letting His grace bless us in every way. We do not need tools, we just need to receive more of the Truth, growing in Grace and Knowledge of the Lord (2 Peter 3: 18). To the degree that we depend or take pride in our own accomplishments, to the degree that we trust ourselves and thus lose our temper to see other people seemingly get away with everything, only then do we find resentment run rampant in our lives. Resentment is about us and our failed attempts to fix our fallen flesh. It's a hopeless case.

Instead, let us rest in our new life, our new identity, Christ in us, the hope of glory (Colossians 1: 27)