Grudges

A grudge is sullen malice or malevolence; ill will; secret enmity; hatred. Holding a grudge is to be discontented at another’s enjoyments or advantages; to envy one the possession or happiness which we desire for ourselves; to give or take unwillingly.—Oxford English Dictionary

Synonyms for grudge include: ill will, malevolence, malice, malignity, spite, and spleen. While all these words mean the desire to see another experience pain, injury, or distress, grudge implies a harbored feeling of resentment or ill will that seeks satisfaction. Ill will implies a feeling of antipathy of limited duration. Malevolence suggests a bitter persistent hatred that is likely to be expressed in malicious conduct. Malice implies a deep-seated often unexplainable desire to see another suffer. Malignity implies deep passion and relentlessness. Spite implies petty feelings of envy and resentment that are often expressed in small harassments. Spleen suggests the wrathful release of latent spite or persistent malice.—Merriam-Webster Dictionary

“Carry a grudge long enough, and it will bend your spine.”—Edna Lister

You could not hold a grudge unless you first filled your subconscious mind with feelings of resentment and blame. When you hold a grudge, you break your own hold on God and the Light. You can hold either love or a grudge, but not both simultaneously. Holding a grudge is breaking the law of forgiveness.

Edna Lister on Grudges

The more you give right where you are, without grudging the service, the greater your reward will be.—Edna Lister, Your Five-Year Plan, Life in a Nutshell, 1942.

Carry a grudge long enough, and it will bend your spine.—Edna Lister, July 14, 1947.

Soul cannot ascend if self holds a personal grudge, the dark residue of spite at the bottom.—Edna Lister, Be-Attitudes, June 5, 1951.

Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.—Philippians 3:15. When you lift and ascend your otherwise mindedness, Light fills all voids with love, and levels all the low places of duties done grudgingly.—Edna Lister, I AM THAT I AM, November 25, 1951.

If you hug the hurt, think of it or repeat it to others, you create a monster, which you must one day meet and conquer.—Edna Lister, Seven Churches, November 25, 1952.

Half-hearted or begrudging praise reveals covetousness, jealousy, envy, hard-heartedness and stinginess of soul.—Edna Lister, Now Is the High Time, December 6, 1953.

Resentment, envy, jealousy and covetousness all carry grudges. Beware.—Edna Lister, Now Is the High Time, December 6, 1953.

A cloud of entities follows anyone who holds grudges, buried "revenge" and "enemy" ideas.—Edna Lister, October 18, 1956.

Hold no grudge. Pour out enough love to cover the other fellow’s transgression.—Edna Lister, September 30, 1957.

Anyone who dwells in the past, who resents, holds a grudge, or charges a debt to another, will block his memory. Erasing such memories by never speaking of them is the heavenly way and is best. You could climb to the Source, but still must incarnate to wipe out the memories and grudges.—Edna Lister, November 28, 1957.

He who holds a grudge is merely jealous, and covering his envy with imagined slights. What a waste, when he could hold only Light, and be free.—Edna Lister, November 28, 1957.

To be interrupted without grudging, but with a smile, will cover many old obligations.—Edna Lister, I AM Joy, 1958.

Holding even the taint of a grudge dilutes and adulterates the power of your prayer.—Edna Lister, How Great Is Your All? January 1959.

You are off the mark when you hold a grudge, pass judgment, pity self, speak or act negatively. You miss the mark when you deny the Christ principle, which is breaking the law of being alive, alert and aware, and misusing the Holy Spirit.—Edna Lister, The Pioneering Mystic, May 5, 1959.

You receive credits for all outer living, except holding grudges and feeling imposed on.—Edna Lister, The 33 Degrees of Soul Conquering, October 13, 1959.

Ending an incarnation still holding a grudge can neutralize the credits earned in a life of good service.—Edna Lister, The 33 Degrees of Soul Conquering, October 13, 1959.

Someone must supply the harmonious joy vibration when you do grudgingly what you should do in joy by making a gift to God.—Edna Lister, December 2, 1959.

Accepting responsibility with a grudge is procrastination.—Edna Lister, What Is the End? Metaphysical Correspondences, May 29, 1962.

When your sacrifice is grudging or blame-based, you tear down the vibration.—Edna Lister, Your Sacred Light, November 10, 1963.

If you forgive grudgingly, you are still blaming others.—Edna Lister, December 16, 1963.

An unwilling sacrifice, or one made grudgingly (a sacrifice of obligation), causes many delays and postponements, and brings no inner returns.—Edna Lister, Five Important Steps in Ascension, 1968.

Don’t carry a grudge for an insult. You cannot know how often God has forgiven him; he may have just asked for and received forgiveness.—Edna Lister, Victory, Using Your Magic Wand, May 24, 1970.

Do not make sacrifices grudgingly, or you lose a reward more magnificent than you can dream.—Edna Lister, The Seventh Seal Opened, June 9, 1970.

Treatment for Grudges

Give every hour’s service freely without a grudge and with no blame for he who demands service. Say, "Let there be Light noving through this, and make it Light so that as much of the world’s darkness as possible can be lifted."—Edna Lister, February 1963.

New Testament on Grudges

If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.—Matthew 5:23-24.

If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.—Matthew 18:15-22.

Old Testament on Grudges

Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.—Leviticus 19:18

He that hides hatred with lying lips, and he that utters a slander, is a fool.—Proverbs 10:18.

A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle.—Proverbs 18:19.

Rejoice not when thine enemy falls, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbles: Lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.—Proverbs 24:17-18.

Say not, I will do so to him as he hath done to me: I will render to the man according to his work.—Proverbs 24:29.

Grudges in Other Sacred Writings

Walk in the knowledge of the Most High without grudging: to His exultation and to the perfection of His knowledge.—Odes of Solomon 23:4.