WAYLAID BY GRACE

"It is mine to avenge; I will repay." Deuteronomy 32:35 "You have heard it said, 'Love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:43-45

God makes it abundantly clear, and Jesus echoes His Father, that we are to have nothing to do with revenge. And to clear up a possible misconception, when Jesus says, "You have heard it said.... But I tell you...," He wasn't referring to the old ways of the "Old Testament God" as compared to the new ways of the "New Testament God" through Christ. The directive "Hate your enemy" is nowhere found in the Old Testament. He was mining God's Truth ( the only Truth) from the slag that the world had produced from distorting the Law to console our proclivities. Nope, God knew all along, and never changed His mind, about the proper handling of revenge. And for us that proper handling was not at all; hands off-- completely. Not that any of us hooked up to a blog like this are even tempted by such a violent thing as revenge.

Or are we? When we take a close, honest look at the mindset of revenge and why God is so dead-set against it, we have to admit that it covers more territory than just the wild-west, shoot em' up-in-the-streets-of-Tombstone-type. The temptation to get revenge visits the genteel maiden as well as the burly, rough-around-the-edges outlaw. We need to be careful that we don't disqualify ourselves from Jesus' teachings about getting even just because of the clothes we wear, our obvious demeanor, or the outward nature of our personalities. I have known many a pleasant smile to conceal a deadly storm brewing beneath its surface. Someone--maybe more than one-- abused her as a child; her parents neglected, rejected, or abandoned her; her husband of forty years traded her in for a newer model. It's her first waking thought and her last waking memory... in fact, most nights she is tormented by nightmares about it.

What lies at the heart of revenge is payment for damages rendered. This vast debt that plagues her days and nights really needs to be paid if she is to get on with her life. She just doesn't have the energy to focus on moving upward ; all the energy she can muster up is committed to just holding herself together. Of course, she knows the payment should come from the one who owes her, but somewhere in the days and weeks, months and years of her life since then, the onerous carriage of such an unwieldy thing has taken over. Finally, it is no longer a thing she is carrying; it has swallowed her up and is carrying her. It covers her, colors her, coaxes, and constrains her so that her vision is blurred and her judgment clouded. It no longer is compartmentalized so that it stays where it belongs. In fact, she now belongs to it, and everyone is game to its hunger.

Maybe you think this language sounds melodramatic, but the sadistic nature of our Enemy cannot be overstated. No words are graphic enough to paint that picture. He is the thief who comes "only to steal and kill and destroy," and he will use whatever weakness he finds in us to do that. Or maybe you don't want to call some of these familiar feelings "revenge." Maybe that sounds like too harsh a word. Would "bitterness" fit better? Still too strong? What about "projecting," as in casting blame or responsibility away from our ourselves onto another. Maybe we have fallen into some deep ditches because of our burden, and we need someone else to accept the responsibility for our being here in this ditch. If someone victimized me so that I have ended up here, then perhaps it would be all right if I do just a teensy bit of the same to someone else-- maybe even anyone else. Pride can coax me into thinking that this might make me feel a little better about evening up the score; people who are badly hurt, even shamed, are not immune to pride's assaults. We can call vengeance by whatever nicer name we like, but if we are loaded down by a spirit of unforgiveness in our back pocket, it's all the more convenient for our Enemy to use against us.

The mind set on revenge is dangerous-- even deadly-- regardless of the source of its inferno or the weapon it wields. When our hearts are set on avenging wrongs done to us, we eventually follow our heart's desire and venture into territory fraught with land mines. The grave danger of getting revenge is that on our way to making sure the world pays us back what it owes us, we can gyp-- even abuse-- a lot of people who are as innocent as we were when we were gypped or abused.

God knows that we are not strong enough to bear the load of vengeance responsibly. We will fall down upon it and cut ourselves to shreds, or it will burrow itself into our flesh and take over. We will become the very monster we flail against. Jesus knew we weren't smart enough to know where to draw the line or how to distinguish between innocence and guilt, so in His living and in His dying He warned us against even trying. He told us to trust the Father with the weight and wisdom of avenging and to focus our own minds on the lifestyle of loving and praying for our enemies. He said that by doing this we will be exactly the person our heart desires to be and just the person the world so desperately needs us to be. We will be"sons [and daughters] of our Father in Heaven."