venom

Of course I wanted to hurt him.

 

He'd hurt me.

 

I didn't just want to hurt him, though. I wanted to deliver hurt in such a way that he'd cower from any idea of crossing me -- ever again.

 

The venom of retribution -- of vengeance -- glided through my emotional veins; I fantasized about how delicious it'd feel to drop the hammer.

Oh, the sweet taste of over-delivering on "justice."

 

You know how this is. If someone slaps you across the face, your immediate, desired response wouldn't just be to deliver one slap back. It'd be to deliver a slap, a punch, a kick, and who knows what else.  

 

But God would have me handle this differently. A part of me doesn't like this; I hoped to offload this venom in some way. But another part of me knows that's wrong.

 

Let's get a few truths clear: the God of the Bible doesn't expect you to absorb evil, and wrong, and pretend it didn't happen. It's normal to be angry about stuff that angers. And yet, nor does God empower us to personally repay evil done against us with more evil (if we're the victims of a crime, this means we don't steal a car because our car was stolen. We report our car stolen, and let authorities handle it from there).

 

So where does that leave us?

 

If you don't know, the Psalms in the the Bible are basically song lyrics. These songs would be sung together by that ancient community. You've probably heard some of the happier psalms. But that's not all there is.

 

There are sad psalms. And there are also angry psalms.

 

For example:

-"Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me! ... Draw the spear and javelin against my pursuers!" -Psalm 35

-"O God, break the teeth in their mouths ... let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime..." -Psalm 58

- "...blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us!" -Psalm 137

 

There are more examples, but you get the idea. The wild thing about song lyrics (any song lyrics, really) is that they can (over time) teach us what to do, how to act, how to relate to one another.

What I appreciate about these angry psalms even being in the Bible: it gives us permission to feel angry. God wants us to express our anger together about injustices, and wrongs, and evil. And also, the Psalms definitely acknowledge the desire for vengeance. The Psalms acknowledge our innate desire to see --with our own eyes-- someone answer for the wrongs they've caused.

The big difference is that the Psalms sing on and on about having the Lord answer for any evils done to his people. The above psalm examples are part of a common trend: asking God to deal with injustice. Asking God to deal with those who've wronged us.

This teaches us to release our thirst for vengeance  -- not for the sake of "being nice", but with the resolute trust that God saw what happened, and that a just and righteous God will answer for us. They (and we) may not get to see God dealing answering on their behalf, but we can trust that God wants us to ask him to do this.

For me, this relieves me. 

 

It's not that my wanting payback is wrong because it's wrong. It's that my personal pursuit of payback is wrong because that's for God to handle, not me. It's fair to want, and to ask, God to deliver retribution on my behalf. That's what we should do with our hatred, our desire for vengeance.

For what are you hoping for retribution? For payback? For vengeance? Maybe it's time to ask God to step in and handle this for you. At least, that's how the psalms would sing it.

fight the potatoes

I once left some potatoes alone in my kitchen cabinet for too long. I'd bought them -- intending to cook and eat them -- but then forgot. While traveling out of town, I belatedly, anxiously remembered that I'd purchased these spuds. Fear began to creep in. I'd heard what potatoes do when left alone too long...

They sprout, they grow, they start to look like some alien-Muppet hybrid dream freak show. Moisture and darkness helps this process along.

 

Envisioning the jungle that awaited me at home, my imagination fomented a maze of vines throughout my kitchen. Vines! Vines scuttling into my sink drain, wrapping 'round my microwave, climbing the walls. Vines, I tell you.

Well, I finally returned home. After I dropped my bags to the floor and braced myself, I flung open the cabinet door. It was time to assess, and to face, my impending garish potato nightmare.

And ... it wasn't that bad. At all. A few potatoes did sprout some aux cord thick-size vines. But the potatoes still felt firm to the touch, which meant they were fine to eat. Otherwise, they looked the same. What my anxiety imagined proved quite inaccurate when compared to reality. When the reality met what I imagined, my imagination's fables withered.

You see, something shifts -- for our good -- when we confront out loud our fears and worries. This is why we're encouraged us to pray to the Lord, particularly in times of trouble; the literal forcing our anxieties to endure being spoken changes it (this is not all that prayer accomplishes, but it's a part of it). Actually, it changes us. We've known this for centuries, and science sheds light on why and how this helps us.

"Cast your burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain you" -Psalm 55:22

When we keep a fear bottled, under wraps ... we lose perspective on its size, and its capabilities. We overestimate its power.

You know this from experience.

When an anxious thought loops in your brain, it gathers anxiety momentum in its orbit. Pretty soon, the class you're not doing so well in becomes a thought that you'll flunk out of college, and then life as you know it is irrevocably swept away. Pretty soon, the crush who takes longer than usual to reply via text becomes a loop of your anxiety whispering to you that you're perpetually unlovable. Lies! All lies. But sometimes, lies can be hard to resist and disbelieve.

So speak it out loud. When it starts to loop again, speak it out loud, again. We must 'cast', and keep 'casting.' ESPECIALLY the stuff that, once you say it out loud, you know will sound ridiculous because it's so untethered from reality. Gird yourself to fight those potatoes of fear (yes, I know, it's an odd phrase that won't catch on), and then happily embrace the surprise that once you square up to those spuds of anxiety, you feel better. Say the words to someone you trust. Speak the prayer to God. It can be stream of consciousness, inarticulate, random, angry. God does not copy-edit our prayers for grammar, punctuation, or style.