Vengence is Mine

It happens to everyone sometime in their life, they are wronged personally.  It is not easy and friends and family members often come your rescue and give you ideas of how to get back at the person or persons who hurt you.  It is nice of them to support you, but often their advice is vengeful and unethical. 

As I have gotten older I have somewhat grown from taking vengence, or trying to take care of it myself, to giving them enough rope to hang themselves.  I thought that was a Biblical point of view; a man reaps what he sows.  When I have taken that point of view I have seen people reap what they sow. 

As I walk with the Lord he gives me new insight and makes me grow a bit more.  I was hurt by some brothers and sisters in Christ, and I thought that I would sit back and watch them reap what they sow, because I felt what they had done was wrong and it was hurtful to me.  God did not let me get away with watching them reap what they sowed, instead He made me go help them to succeed.  He arranged my circumstances and made me go and help the people who broke my heart.  I will be honest I did not enjoy it to begin with, and I thought God was going to let me see them reap what they sowed, but He didn't.  Instead God changed me and taught me some things.  A follower is not greater than his master, Jesus was hurt and betrayed by his friends.  Jesus came back for Peter, died for Judas as well as me, a follower is no greater than his Master.   Reconcilliation is very important to God, and if I have a brother or sister who has offended me then I need to go to them.  I need to pray for those who have hurt me, and the prayer should not be God get them (even though it is tempting), but it should be a prayer that brings glory to God and furthers his kingdom.  It is much easier to love those who love us, but true love is often seen when I love others who are not treating me justly.

I am somewhat on the otherside of the hurts, they happened a few years ago.  As I was talking to a friend she was telling me how some people were not treating her well and so she decided to take a course that would somewhat undermine the people who had hurt her.  It was not an unethical course, but it was not a productive course.  Her course is ending up making her look bad and justifying the actions of the people she is trying to undermine.  As I listened to her I realized that God says "vengence is mine" for a reason.  God knows the hearts and circumstances of all of the people involved and when I try to take action on my part it makes me look bad, but if I leave vengence to God and love those who treated me unjustly I bring glory to God.

Psalm 37:18  The days of the blameless are know to the LORD, and their inheritance will endure forever.