Jan Werling, center, from the FCA state office, visited with
members of the Montezuma FCA at their Jan. 3 meeting.
Anger, grudges can pull you from God
Jan. 3, 2007
“If you hold a grudge against someone, or are angry with someone, it can pull you away from God,” said John Bushong, huddle leader, to about three dozen students attending the first Montezuma Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting of 2008.
“Anger and an unforgiving attitude can ruin your life,” Bushong continued. “If we can show kindness, compassion and forgiveness to people we have had a problem with, it might push them closer to God,” Bushong said. “Remember, God made them, too.”
The huddle meeting took place on Thursday, Jan. 3, the first day back in class for Montezuma’s students after the holiday break.
A special guest at the meeting was Jan Werling of Indianola, who works for FCA in the state office as the Central Iowa representative.
“I just want to encourage you,” Werling told the students, noting she’s happy to see dozens of students at a huddle meeting that years earlier averaged only about six students.
“I had two kids in ninth grade who worked on me when I was their coach,” Werling said. “That is when I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. You’re never too old, or too young, for the Lord to use you. Continue to give ‘em heaven, OK?”
The students spent over a half hour playing a dice game.
Bushong then passed out cards and told the students to write in the first name of some person they didn’t like, and to keep the card in their pockets.
Bushong then made the Bible story about Jonah come alive for the students.
He said God wanted Jonah to go and preach about Him to people in the large city of Ninevah. Jonah didn’t want to, so he sailed the opposite direction in a boat.
He said that Jonah was sleeping in the bottom of a boat when a ferocious storm came up. The frightened sailors wanted to blame someone, so they cast lots and Jonah’s name came up.
They awakened Jonah, but didn’t have to assign blame, because he accepted it. “God is mad at me,” he told them.
“Well, what must we do?” they asked.
“Throw me overboard,” he said.
“We can’t do that,” they responded. “Your God will kill us.”
Jonah insisted, so they tossed him overboard. The storm stopped. But the sailors couldn’t find Jonah and feared that they had killed him.
“A big fish – a whale, we presume - had swallowed Jonah,” Bushong said. “We’re told he spent three days inside the whale. He had time to think.”
“Jonah repented,” Bushong said. “The lessons so far are:
- People can change
- Don’t run from God
- If you do run, you can mess up others.”
“So Jonah went back and preached to the people of Ninevah. But that’s not the end of the story. Jonah got mad at God for saving Ninevah,” Bushong said.
“Jonah was from what today is Israel. Ninevah was in what today is Syria. They were enemies,” Bushong said. “Jonah was furious, so he went outside the city for a chat with God. He didn’t want Ninevah to be saved. The problem,” Bushong said, “was that Jonah was stuck on himself.”
At this point, Bushong broke away from the Bible story to talk about harboring grudges and anger, discussed at the top of this story. He added this: “You don’t have to go up and confront the person you’re angry with. In fact, God doesn’t want that,” he said. “But you can show kindness, compassion and be nice to that person, as much as you can.”
The Montezuma FCA meets at 8 p.m. every other Thursday, alternating with an ecumenical youth group.
Members of the Montezuma FCA play a game during their
huddle meeting on Jan. 3.