Retaliate With Love

Over the Thanksgiving break, I watched the video of the “Duck Dynasty” Robertson family giving their testimony on IAmSecond.org. Phil Robertson shared a story of reading Matthew 5:44 shortly after becoming a Christian. He couldn’t understand the logic in what Jesus was saying when He said, “Bless those that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.” He shared a story of how “river rats” were stealing his fish. He trusted God, gave them the fish they were trying to steal and they quit stealing from him.

I read another article on yahoo.com recently where a young lady was pick pocketed in the grocery store. She had a strange feeling about a man who had followed her around the store. When he quit following her, she noticed her wallet was missing. She found him a few aisles over and decided to confront him. She said, “I think you have something of mine. I’m going to give you a choice. You can either give me my wallet and I’ll forgive you right now,and I’ll even take you to the front and pay for your groceries” or we can get the authorities involved. That’s not how I would have handled it, but it’s the way God says to.

The man broke down and cried. He was desperate to feed his family and didn’t know what else to do. Instead of retaliating like most of us would have, she paid for groceries for his family. In The Message, it quotes Jesus in Matthew 5:44 as saying, “I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst.” That’s hard to do. It’s unnatural to let someone who hurts you to bring out the best in you. Normally we retaliate evil for evil and allow their bad deed to give us an excuse to do something back. God says we aren’t to behave that way. He says we’re to do good to them and to show them His love.

If you skip down to verse 48 of the same chapter, Jesus finishes by saying, “In a word, what I’m saying is, ‘Grow up.’ You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.” Those last few words get me every time. “The way God lives toward you” is how He wants me to live toward others. Each of us have wronged God and hurt Him. Each of us will continue to do so until we die. We’re imperfect. How we treat Him doesn’t change how He lives toward us. He still loves us no matter what we’ve done to Him. That’s how He he is telling us to be towards others who wrong us.

I’m sure, like me, you can think of the people who have wronged you or hurt you. I’m also sure you would like nothing more than to hurt them back or see them get paybacks. Paying back evil for evil or good for good is what’s expected. If you really want to do something memorable and life changing, do something good for them. If you want to live generously and graciously like God asked us to live, do the opposite of what your human nature wants you to do and repay them with love for pain they caused you. I know it’s easier said than done, but I can tell you it works and you’ll be happier for it.