One of our natural responses when we have been treated unfairly or accused wrongly is to defend ourselves. I remember one time hearing a teaching about this and being told that many times in an attempt to defend ourselves we can actually make the situation worse.
I didn’t see how that was possible. I mean, it only made sense to me that you right a wrong. Who else is going to look out for you? Well sure, there is God and everything but He isn’t here in the flesh able to re-establish your credit and integrity.
I would learn the painful truth about this the hard way. A couple of years ago I worked as a preschool teacher. I had been trying for several years to establish myself as a writer and the day finally came when I was able to quit my day job and pursue a career as a writer.
Needless to say that didn’t sit well with some of my co-workers. Because I was a Christian, I had already endured enough taunting and questioning of my faith. Now they came at me full force. Lies about me began to spread. My boss took me into her office to question me and I was almost in tears trying to convince her otherwise.
The trouble was, the more I tried to defend myself over those last few days of my employment the worse I looked. I can’t really describe exactly why that was but it seemed like I dug myself a deeper hole. I left that place of employment on a bad note and it didn’t feel very good.
In Hebrews 10:30 it says that God takes care of revenge. He is the one to pay back those who have hurt or wronged us. Now you might not think defending yourself is the same as revenge but it really is.
What typically happens is when we are trying to defend ourselves, we end up defaming others. In my attempt to convince my boss a co-worker was lying about me, it forced me to point out things she had been doing. That was taking revenge; try as I might to call it something else.
You see, it also goes on to say in Hebrews 10:30 that the Lord will judge His own people. This should actually cause us to take a step back and re-evaluate the worth of defending ourselves. After all, if we know we have done no wrong then it doesn’t really matter what others think. It’s what God thinks.
This is not easy, I will give that you. We don’t want people to think wrong of us. We want people to see the best in us. But remember that it’s not man we should be concerned about pleasing, it is God.
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