God Knows the Vindication You Seek: A 5-Day Reading PlanSýnishorn

DAY 1: The Problem with Vengeance

When I was a teenager someone started a rumor that my father was having an affair. Outraged, I drove to this person’s workplace and confronted them publicly about their gossip. I wanted them to feel low—lower than I felt for the rumors they had been telling.

If I had been able to discern what I was actually dealing with, I’d have known it was much more than personal offense. My heart was wounded. People who I thought loved our family weren’t there when we needed them. I was weary from the effort of squashing lies. I was dealing with my own questions and issues of faith and my fears of my father not being who he said he was. But I didn’t want to deal with any of that.

When someone wrongs us, most of us think we want to pay that person back for what they have done. But what’s it really about? When you’re fighting hard to defend yourself, you’re trying to throw your hot potato of pain into someone else’s hands. We want to transfer to them the feelings of helplessness, sorrow, anger, and insecurity we felt when they inflicted pain on us. They might catch it, but it’s still your potato. In other words, revenge is about getting out of pain. If transferring our discomfort to the offender would do it, it would be harder to convince people not to try to get even. But retribution is an illusion, and any of us who have tried to pay someone back for the hurt they have caused us know this well.

Our attempts at paying people back do not take away the issue at hand. In many cases, they give us another issue. After I visited the rumor starter’s workplace, I had to juggle more hot potatoes—I felt helpless. Then I felt afraid. Then angry. It wasn’t long before the Holy Spirit began convicting me of my actions. Trying to pay people back never eases the pain of what they’ve done to us. It only extends it.

The good news: God knows your pain, and He can heal it.

Respond

Have you ever sought vindication through payback? How did your efforts to escape your pain that way unfold? What effects of that endure in your life today?