What Do You Do When You Are Wronged?

It happens all the time. Someone steps in line in front of you. A co-worker gets favors instead of you. People criticize your lifestyle. Another car cuts you off. From early on my first reaction was to retaliate.

My examples are many. One I remember clearly occurred in an east coast hotel while facilitating a seminar. Wall charts had been created as exercises were completed and hung on the wall for the summary to this five-day seminar. When I left the room one evening late in the week, I wrote a message on a wall chart in big red letters asking the banquets crew to not destroy my charts. Arriving in the room the next morning, you guessed it, my wall charts were gone! Unwilling to control my temper, my tirade started with the hotel manager and finally led to the person that cleaned the room. Shouting accusations of stupidity in the staff persons face, I was stopped short when he responded, "Que, Senior?" Stopped short, I realized he could not read my message written in English.

Anger and retaliation seemed justified to me then. I knew no other way! Changing my ways seem impossible to me. Life had done me wrong and I was ready to take back what had been taken from me. No one would take advantage of me.

Pretty self-centered wasn't I? My hurts and wounds had made me the most important person on earth! Infringe on my rights and you would be held accountable. I'm not sorry for your plight because you likely did it to yourself. Judgment, criticism, and condemnation were my rights! Give someone the benefit of the doubt, you've got to be kidding!

You can guess the end I'm sure. My life was empty and lonely. I literally lost everything of value to me. Bankrupt and alone, I finally realized there was more to life than me! Flying in an airplane on my 45th birthday, I asked someone for help for the first time in my life--his name was Jesus Christ.

The Bible say that Jesus came to us full of grace and truth. Only He can supernaturally impart grace that will set us free. Don't misunderstand, it didn't happen over night. In fact, it's still happening, 23 years later! Only with the supernatural power of His grace received by faith, can we become others-centered and break free of self-centeredness. His grace is His ability that becomes ours when we trust Him.

The Bible says to turn the other cheek when we are wronged. This doesn't mean we have to become whimps! It means that we are to speak the truth with grace and love with the purpose of setting others free from the same burdens we may have carried. Here's the end: With God's supernatural grace in us, our responses to wrongs can be constructive, not destructive! We can live in peace that is beyond our understanding. We can become others-centered!