When you constantly feel that people are contending with you, and you can’t seem to “forgive” it, it could be that you are infested with a contentious spirit. It is a “thing” in the spirit realm that rests on people and makes them imagine that everyone is arguing with them so that they will hunger to argue back. This is especially common among groups that attend formal, regular religious gatherings; no matter the religion, the contentious spirit is the same and makes people behave this same, contentious way. It’s not a “religious” problem; it’s a “recruit people” formal structure problem.
Usually, recruiting religious structures recruit people because they are led by people with the same spirit, always hungering for more people to argue with. To mask this, the spirits make people feel homely among their group of other people with the same spirit, enabling them to think they are friendly when, actually, they are only friendly with their clique. Even among their own religion, they will tend to argue with other groups and people. If you have difficulty with arguments and you are part of a religious weekly meeting, this could likely be you.
I actually sat with a person from a religion different from my own and explained this. The whole time he shook his head, smiling, and said, “I don’t agree. We don’t argue like that.” It never occurred to him that he was being argumentative about being argumentative. But, I didn’t call him out on it because, frankly, I didn’t want to argue. I just said, “You’ve been told, do whatever you want with it.”
That urge to contend with someone will drive people to argue about things—whether to agree or disagree—in which they have neither say nor decision. The mere desire to have an opinion about someone else’s business is a flashing red light and loud buzzer warning that one has this problem. The reason a person wants to argue with things that don’t matter, which they have no vested interest in, is because the contentious spirit on them wants to argue with everyone.
Stay aware to notice “contentious spirits” and feel free to call people out on it.