Hatred and Hurt, Healing and Holiness

“Hate is a lack of imagination.”

― GRAHAM GREENE (1904-1991)

Hate is ignorance,
Sullenly self-satisfied,
Essences of malevolence,
Bound, gagged and tied.

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Hate is never a good thing as it occurs in us to the extension of our relationships. It’s a travesty of our and others’ lives. It’s ours to imagine a better truth. Love, sparked by an openness of imagination, begins the unravelling of what is bound, gagged and tied.

It must so hurt the heart of God when he sees full blown sin through the propagation of ignorance in the outcome of hate.

Hate speaks about intrinsic injustice. One cannot hate and be justified at the same time, even if the hatred speaks about its own injustice. Hatred does not befit hatred. And though there are things that God hates, those that are specified in the Word of God, there is that sense of a perfect justice that only a holy God can institute. Only God can justifiably hate because holiness gets justice right every time.

So when we consider that we are incapable of hating in a justified sense – because we are not holy, as God is – we have but one choice: to forgive by enrolling in love. Forgiveness is the only thing we can do in reconciling our hurts such that we don’t hate, and we can love, and we can therefore be healed.

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Hatred and Hurt

Buried beneath hatred is the belly of hurt; the unreconciled anguish of emotions inadequately and inappropriately dealt with. Hatred is the outward sign; hurt is the inward reality of unreconciled anger and denial. No human being can truly hate a person or people or situations without having also the presence of unreconciled hurts. There is an energy force that propels the emotional state of hate and where that comes from is never pretty.

Healing and Holiness

Buried beneath healing is the notional acquisition of holiness – of having been touched by God, because there was a need of God; a reaching out to God. Healing is the outward sign of the inner reality of holiness as it has been accessed from God and integrated into a person. There is an energy force so thoroughly good that has manifested this healing. Only can healing be achieved by cooperation with the Spirit of God through obedient surrender.

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Hatred and healing are worlds apart, because hurt fuels hatred, whilst God’s holiness generates healing. The person who seeks to be healed can be healed. They are ready to do whatever their imaginations conjure. The hurt person, on the other hand, resists their imagination and they are polarised in their ignorance and hatred is the outcome.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.