Do Not Take Revenge

By the lovely Sandy Payne

"Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.  (Romans 12:19)

Doesn’t this sound crazy?  I mean, in the world WE live in, you have to defend yourself because, well, nobody else will, right?  But, if we’re after real transformation, we’ve got to be radical and serious about looking more like Christ than the world.

Here’s why this is so hard: it takes an enormous amount of trust to let go when we’ve been wronged and hand it over to God.  It takes a belief that He knows more than we do, that He’ll handle it better than we would, and that His motives, means and His desire for the very best for us and for others is far above our own.

A few years ago, I suffered what I believed to be unfair treatment from some friends.  For weeks, I frantically tried to plead my case by talking to all of the friends involved--explaining how I had been wronged, who was really at fault,  and trying to get to the bottom of who had caused the problem.  In the meantime, I stirred up a hornet’s nest that ultimately led to the loss of several friendships and dissension among the group of Christian women involved.  If I had left the situation in God’s hands, I might have avoided what turned out to be an ugly spectacle of the dark side of female friendships—and I ended up playing the starring role.

Ultimately, the whole issue was my pride.  I wanted to be right.  I wanted to point out how others were wrong.  My pride overrode my desire to please God, to put others first, and trust that God would take care of the situation.

We never have all the information.  We never know every side or every perspective.  But God does.  He can right wrongs in ways that we cannot.  He sees our hearts—and the hearts of others--and can help us sort out emotions and fears and insecurities and conflict in a way that doesn’t leave a wake of damage and destruction behind us.  His ultimate desire for us is peace, but we have to leave selfish selves behind if we are to obtain it.

I am learning to check my motives when I feel I’ve been wronged, and to ask God constantly to weed out any selfish motives or emotional strongholds that the Enemy may use to cause dissension.  And ultimately, it boils down to whether or not we really believe that God will handle our lives better than we can.  His ways really are higher than ours.  (Isaiah 55:9)

In humility, consider others more highly than yourselves.  Look not to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. - Philippians 2:3