Get Over It

If you don’t get over it, you never will; Duh. One of the things we get hung up over is being upset over someone or something. There are several tried and failed ways of getting over it and there is one way the Bible reveals.

One of the tried and failed ways sounds like this, “…stuff it down… suck it up… get busy…it will soon take care of itself… it’s not that big a deal in the big scheme of things…just ignore it…” The reason this has failed is seen in a fact that builders of large projects know very well; if you fudge an inch here, it will be six feet off down there, and will become 20 feet off before the project is complete. Life is a bigger project than any building on earth. Holding on to being upset will only get worse and worse and worse. You can’t manage “upset.” It will grow on you.

Another tried and failed way is to blame other people. A problem comes up and we think all we need to do is to find who is to blame, knowing it is never you.  Remember the guy in John 5:1-17 laying beside the pool of Bethesda for 38 years? Jesus asked him if he wanted to be made whole. What did he say? “No one will help me…someone always beats me into the water.” He blamed others for the condition he was in. Adam did the same thing in the garden, “…the woman that You gave me, she made me eat.” Please.

When you constantly blame others you make yourself the judge in order to avoid giving an account for your actions. You refuse an inalienable responsibility; you must give account to God. He created us with a response-ability. Blaming others is the first and most basic sin and character flaw.

Then there is the old, hash-it-over-with-others-you-and-I-are-friends-I’m-giving-it-to-you, method. This is also called the shared offense syndrome. When you hash over your upsets with friends, what you are really doing is trying to get support for your ill feelings and your right that “they” (those who are to blame) are wrong. You try to justify your actions which have been directed by hurt feelings. Feelings are very real and can be very wrong and misleading. When you share your offense with others, it grows larger in them and spreads.

There are others, but what is the one way to get over being upset that the Bible reveals? One simple word, repent. Simple, but not easy. Repent means you make a course change because you have gotten off course. One of the first things you learn in driver education is that you cannot keep your hands still on the steering wheel. You must always be making slight corrections because the car will drift. If you don’t correct it immediately, and carefully, the drift will put you in the ditch or into the path of an oncoming vehicle, a head-on path. After you learn how to do this you don’t even notice it much, but you are constantly making slight course corrections. This is what it means to repent.

Repentance is constantly making corrections because you have your eyes on the road (the Way, the Truth, the Life), and your mind on the destination (Colossians 3:1-4).  In the Bible everything leads to repentance; God’s kindness to you leads to repentance (Romans 2:4), godly sorrow leads to repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10), miracles are for the purpose of pointing you to repent (Matthew 11:20ff), instead of saying “Wow, did you see that,” we are to say, “Woe is me for I am undone…” Current events are to lead us to repent (Luke 13:1-9). Good, bad, or boring, like driving, we are to be constantly making corrections. Repent. This will get you over it.