Proverbs 24:29 challenges us: “Do not say, ‘I will do to him as he has done to me; I will pay the man back for what he has done.'”
It ought to be common sense, but if we’re honest with ourselves, we often want an eye for an eye. This is a destructive mindset. In Corinthians, Paul rebukes the church for this attitude. Much like today, they were quick to use the courts to get payback for the wrongs done to one another. Paul boils it down to a simple but very difficult mindset. Be willing to be wronged. “Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?” Do you really believe that God is both a just judge and is also able to deliver you? Are you really willing to place that kind of trust in God?
Jesus said it like this, “return evil with good.” How in the world do we do that? We can only do it if our faith and trust is in God himself, not the things of this world. Life is not a zero sum game. If it were, what a miserable existence we would all have, spending our days trying to take from one another and waste away our energy and resources vainly clinging to what little we have. And yet many times we act just like that.
God’s economy is one of productivity and blessing. Christ’s parables and analogies air filled with imagery of growth and increase. God’s very act of creation is the making of something out of nothing and he calls us to redeem, be fruitful and grow. To protect out turf and seek our increase at the expense of others, and the habit of always demanding our rights and recompense, is essentially a rejection of God and a misplaced faith, one that rests in ourselves.
Are you walking by faith or by sight?