Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. Be in agreement with one another. Do not be proud; instead, associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Do not repay evil for evil. Try to do what is honorable in everyone’s eyes. If possible, on your part, live at peace with everyone. Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead leave room for his wrath. For it is written: Vengeance belongs to Me, I will repay, says the Lord.
Romans 12:14-19 HCSB
As I read this scripture passage this morning, I was wishing that I could tell you that I am a good, mature Christian and this is what I do. But, I don’t want to lie. Yesterday, I came face to face with the enemy. This person has caused a great deal of trouble for my family. So, what I wanted to do was to confront this person. I wanted to tell him what I really thought about him. I wanted to tell those around him that if they knew what was good for them that they would get far, far away from this person because he is pure evil. That’s what I wanted to do.
Now I saw this person as I was headed to the park to walk my dogs. When your walking dogs, you have a lot of time to think. When I think is when I realize that this is not how God would want me to handle things. So, I had to rethink my plan. What I wanted to do could not be what I was gonna do.
You see when my family was in an all out spiritual battle with this person, God took care of everything. When something would happen that would initially seem to be a huge disappointment, we would soon find that God had worked it all out for our good (Romans 8:28).
I have learned the hard way that what I wanna do should be way different from what I’m gonna do. The reason it is this way is because I have learned to pray first and act second. If I give it to God in prayer first, then he calms me down and changes my heart. He has also taught me that no one can out do Him when it comes to vengeance. I don’t know if you have ever seen someone who is evil and comes against one of God’s children being dealt with by God, but I can assure you, it is not pretty. God has not yet dealt with this person, but I know that if he doesn’t repent and turn to God, it’s coming. I have, however, seen God deal with other enemies and He has dealt with them so harshly that I have found myself on my knees asking God to lighten up on them. Through prayer, God gave me a heart of compassion for this person. Through prayer, God gave me the wisdom to do things His way.
I sometimes wonder if I will ever get to the point where I will automatically do what this scripture passage instructs us to do. I hope so, but I’m not so sure. Maybe God made us this way so that we will be ever mindful of the fact that we need Him always. We need Him to guide us on the right path. We need Him to help us to react in the right way. We need to be in constant contact with Him through prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:17). We need to understand that we can do all things through Christ, not our own strength (Philippians 4:13).
The Bible instructs us to do some things that seem impossible at times, but if we think it through then we see that God’s way is the best way. I am glad that what I wanna do no longer matches what I’m gonna do. Because now, even when I really want to act in a way that contradicts God’s word, what I’m gonna do is pray about it and hopefully do it God’s way. I have learned that my way usually doesn’t work out so well in the long run.
My prayer for you today is that you have reached the point where your wanna doesn’t match your gonna. I pray that you will stop and pray and allow God to lead you in all that you do. I promise you, His way is always far better than our own. Trust in Him today. He’s got this!
Have a great day!