God Is Your Defender: Learning to Stand After Life Has Knocked You DownSýnishorn

The True Battle

If we’re going to lean into letting God be our Defender, then we’ve got to come clean on whom the real battle is with when it comes to letting God be God. The real battle is with ourselves. Our sense of right and wrong. Our personalities. The baggage we carry from previous experiences. These all have an impact on our ability and willingness to allow God to defend us instead of jumping into the fray with retribution in our hearts and sharp words on our tongues; or shoving those hurts under the rug for no one to see. We can’t control how people around us are going to treat us. We can’t control their reactions, their nagging, or their neglect. The only person in the equation that we get to make behavior choices for is us.

Sometimes I want to excuse my response to a hurt by minimizing my reaction. But anytime I take matters into my own hands without first taking them to God, I’m at risk of violating these important words: “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:18 NIV). Does that mean that I never speak up, never confront? Of course not. What it does mean is that I must first seek God’s cleansing of my own heart so that in my anger or my hurt or my confusion or my sense of rejection or violation, I don’t respond in sin. Identifying how you commonly respond in hurtful situations will help you frame better responses and healthier perspectives. 

Another factor that influences your response is the people you surround yourself with. We often exact our more petty forms of revenge in some of our closest relationships. Although, sometimes it’s the people we don’t know who get the full brunt of our biggest reactions to frustrations and hurts. What is happening in these moments? The guardrails that may keep us safe in closer relationships sometimes come down with people we don’t know, and we can find ourselves reacting far outside of what is helpful, what is good, what is of God. There were times Jesus stood up—but he also knew when to stand down. 

If we’re going to let God be our Defender, we have to understand the difference between someone unfairly hurting us and someone who simply has style issues. Whatever wrong, hurt, or injustice I face, that initial experience marks the start of a journey toward a place where I rest fully in having God as my Defender. It’s a journey with lots of ups and downs. It’s a journey in which I have to face some uncomfortable truths about myself. 

We don’t always get to have closure, when all the wrongs and hurts get resolved. But when I was honest with myself and saw that the point of this journey I was on was my relationship with God, something shifted. It became my mission to discover his place as my Defender. So be honest with yourself. Is revenge your highest priority? Or is God?

Respond

How do you tend to respond to someone’s hurtful words or actions? 

What does it mean to take your feelings and circumstances to God before responding to them?

What does it look like to let God be your Defender rather than take revenge yourself?