Leviticus 19:18
Stop being angry and don’t try to take revenge. I am the Lord, and I command you to love others as much as you love yourself.
Scripture taken from the Contemporary English Version © 1991,1992, 1995 by American Bible Society, Used by Permission.
I once knew someone who fell in love and gave his girlfriend a beautiful – and very expensive – diamond engagement ring. Then she broke up with him… and kept the ring! He was furious. I’m not talking hundreds of dollars… I’m talking tens of thousands! And he subsequently learned that this was not the first diamond ring that the girl had received… and kept after a breakup! I guess you could say she considered these to be “consolation prizes” of a sort!
Hopefully this has not happened to you – at least not in such an expensive and disappointing fashion. But you very well may have shared your belongings, your money, your time – or even your heart with another person, only to have him/her trample all over your love and generosity in some manner. Perhaps you shared your apartment or home with someone – and they trashed it. Maybe you gave a friend in need an extra twenty dollar bill…and he/she blew it on cigarettes or a video game. Or you showered someone with love and concern – only to learn that he/she had been cursing your name when your back was turned and spreading vicious lies about you to others. How would you react? How would you want to respond?
There is an old adage that says, “Living well is the best revenge.” But what, exactly, constitutes “living well”? If you examine the words of this scripture passage, you find that loving others as much as you love yourself paints this picture with a pretty broad brush! In other words, to have true peace…GOD’s peace… you must be willing to “turn the other cheek” in many situations… to overlook or forgive others’ missteps and mistreatment of you… to stay calm and unfazed in the face of disappointments and exploitations.
In order to truly experience peace in your life, you have to come to a point where you quit trying to please others and focus on pleasing only GOD. You have truly arrived when you can say… “I know I have done the right thing. I can live with myself and what I think… how I feel… my words and actions. How the other guy deals with it is up to him and God.” Sadly, there will be times in all of our lives when we will be cheated, wronged, disappointed, and possibly rejected by others. But GOD will never leave us. If we focus on Him, He will take care of everything else. He is the only One we have to please.
I don’t know if the guy ever got his ring back or not… but he eventually married someone else and moved on with his life. In the scheme of things, the lessons we learn are not about the value of our losses as much as how we handle the experience. When we take ourselves out of the equation… when we stop being angry, don’t try to take revenge, and love others as much as we love ourselves… we give God control of doling out judgment… and we allow Him to fill us with His peace in return. For me, that is the ultimate example of “living well”… what about you?
©2013 Debbie Robus
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