I Samuel 15:24
‘Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned; I have indeed transgressed the command of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and listened to their voice.”‘
The Lord wants complete obedience. Saul obeyed with much of the mission. Part of it he didn't comply. The Lord will work with us on this. For example, Jesus reduced all the commandments to two, love God and love people. As we live our lives we come in contact with difficult individuals. Peter gives us a hint of the difficulty of relationships when asked how many times we are to forgive others. His (so called) generous suggestion was seven times. Jesus stunned him by answering "seventy times seven" (Matthew 18:21,22).
Jesus' point is we are to always forgive. That is tough. The bible gives us advice to help. He says in Matthew 18:15-17, “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector."
Jesus points out that we have boundaries in relationships. If someone is abusive, we tell them what's bothering us. If they don't stop we create more distance. Yes, we forgive them, but that doesn't mean that we tolerate abuse. In the end, we don't associate with them, if they won't honor our boundaries.
That is the biblical model. However, we can easily get wrapped up in different behavior. We might hold a grudge, which is a lack of forgiveness. This is like Saul's situation. We aren't walking in complete obedience. The Lord will work with us to forgive. Things will come up that remind us to let it go. We can obey or keep with the partial obedience.
This is not worth it. Hanging on to stubbornness makes us feel miserable and causes us to lose our joy. It seems foolish, but we still do it. Isaiah 59:2 tells us why sin (or partial obedience) makes us feel this way. "But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear." We are building our own barrier between God and ourselves as we partially obey.
Complete obedience takes effort. Hebrews 12:4 says, "You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin". I can recall the feelings of guilt by holding a grudge. I'm torn between letting go what I sense is a right to keep that grudge and taking the risk and approaching the other person. We are exhausted by this struggle.
In Acts 26:5 Paul shares Jesus' words to him when he was walking in disobedience, "And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.'" The Lord was working in Paul (formerly named Saul) before he surrendered to Christ. Paul was resisting. Jesus pointed out how hard it is to live this way.
We are happiest when we walk in complete obedience to Christ. Things will come up from time to time in which we wrestle to obey. Hopefully the amount of time we engage in this gets shorter. That's growing in maturity.
Lord, help us to walk with You in complete obedience. Help us to put aside what we think are our rights to cling to grudges and to trust You in the process.