Revenge
As mortals, we live with a multitude of niggling contradictions, petty parasites, infinite decisions, kaleidoscopic temptations, roller-coaster emotions, multitudinous feelings of rising Fahrenheit and plunging Celsius, ever struggling between good and evil, right and wrong, love and hate, freedom and captivity. On a normal day, the sun will shine, and the rain will fall, thunder will crack, and lightning will strike; however, there is a defense, and it is found not in the head, which is the seat of logic, but in the heart, which is the seat of wisdom. It is the head that we must educate, but it is the heart we must guard. The English poet Clough said,
“Play no tricks on thy soul, oh man. Let fact be fact and life the thing it can.”
His words have become my motto. I think of those words whenever my judgment begins to become clouded with emotion. The head fortifies us against foolishness, but the heart fortifies us against sin. Combustible hate consumes us; pure love expands us into our true god-like potential.
“7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8)
God is pure love, a concept that is not easy to grasp and even harder to execute. But we must understand that love and hate are not abstractions, mere platitudes that please the ear. Love and hate are sources of great power, even over whelming power. When we give ourselves to hate, it gives Satan power over us. We are easily led by any power that feeds our desire for revenge. We can be so consumed by hate and the desire for revenge that we shut out the finer parts of our nature. Hate holds us captive to the person we hate. Love frees us from the person we have reason to hate. Christ said,
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. (Matthew 5:9-12)
The word love itself represents freedom. Earlier I said that God is free because he is law. Perhaps I should have also said that God is free because he is perfect in law and love. The two great commandments teach us to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. If we lived the law of love perfectly, the weight of mortality would be lifted, and all problems in the world would be resolved. After reading the podcast a close friend who was recently divorced wrote,
“When you are hurt very deeply by someone who promised to love and protect you AND your sweet children, it's REALLY hard to NOT hate his guts and that hatred towards him is a powerful emotion. But what you are saying is truth. Forgiveness heals the hate.”
Think about one commandment—Love your enemy. If we could follow that commandment perfectly, no one could have power over us. They may rule our actions, but they could never hurt our feelings or conquer our spirits. Love expands us; hate consumes us. The only power our enemies have over us is that which we give them through the consuming fires of furious hate or blood boiling revenge. Rage, revenge, and railing are evil regardless of the cause or the perceived justification. God alone can make laws. We, mortals that we are, have only the power to make decisions whether to obey those laws or to disobey those laws. We have no power to alter them.
