If you know me, you know I am not a confrontational person. However, if you hurt my family, my friends, or my cats, my initial urge is to pay it back tenfold. Like Katniss Everdeen, I raise my hand to volunteer as tribune for the #AngerGames. I’m ready to fight for the title of judge, jury and punisher. Don’t act like you are surprised, and don’t act like you wouldn’t be the same way.
But here’s the good news: We don’t have to lash out with fists or words when someone hurts us because nothing we do in response to offense compares to God’s response when one of His children is hurt. (His children = you and me.)
On a rare morning when I wasn’t fighting wakefulness with #IdiopathicHypersomnia, I went outside to my God spot – the place I frequently go to talk to God – to read my Bible. He unexpectedly gifted me Psalm 18.
I didn’t have a plan of what I was going to read that morning, and I don’t even know how I landed on Psalm 18:6-19. I had to read it twice to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me. It left me stunned. To paraphrase:
“In my distress, I called upon the Lord, and from His temple, He heard me. The earth reeled and rocked; the foundations of the mountains trembled and quaked, because He was angry. Smoke went from His nostrils, and a devouring fire from His mouth. He parted the heavens and came down; thick blackness under His feet…He came swiftly on the wings of the wind. And He sent out His arrows and scattered my enemies…The foundations of the world were laid bare at Your rebuke, Lord…He drew me out of many waters. He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support…He rescued me, because He delighted in me.
Psalm 18:6-19
Do you want to see something really cool? When I asked ChatGPT to use Romans 18:6-19 to create an image of how God was depicted in those verses, this is what it gave me:
If this is even the tiniest bit of a true depiction of the God of the Universe – the One I get to call Papa God, the One who calls me chosen, the One who fights for me every minute and has already won all my battles, the One who delights in me – how blessed am I? And if I am blessed, so are you, friend, because He calls you chosen too.
There’s another image I came across about a year ago. There is a really talented painter who has a series of images I love. His name is Kevin Carden, and this is his depiction of when we are in trouble and Jesus comes running to save us:
Friend, no matter what you’re going through…
No matter what what they accuse you of…
No matter what they say about you…
No matter how alone you feel…
When you cry out to God, He hears you, and He responds. Even when the only words you can get out are a whispered “God, help me” or when there are no words at all, only tears.
The thing I love about Lauren Daigle’s song “Rescue” is that it is written from God’s POV when we send out an SOS to Him. I had never even thought about what God might possibly say when I cry out to Him, and hearing this song helped me understand just a little better God’s love for us.
Rescue – Lauren Daigle
“I hear you whisper underneath your breath, I hear your SOS. I will send out an army to find you In the middle of the darkest night. It’s true, I will rescue you. I will never stop marching to reach you In the middle of the hardest fight. It’s true, I will rescue you.”
I’m finally learning now, after 45 years, how passionate the God of the Universe is about me. Sinful, weak, judgmental, vengeance-seeking me. And friend, He loves you just as passionately with enormous, earth-trembling, mountain-foundation-shaking love.
He sees what they do to you. He hears what they say to you and what they say about you when you are not in the room. He knows it hurts, and He knows you want them to pay. And I think it’s okay to defend yourself, but don’t wage war. Don’t harbor hate. Don’t seek vengeance.
Vengeance is God’s, and He will make all things right.
Friend, this world is cold and hard and painful. Fix your eyes on the Father who created you in His image, on the God who delights in you. Let Him love you. Let Him carry your pain. Let Him have the vengeance.
Trust Him. He’s already won the battle for you.
The best place in this world is under His wings, fully protected and fully at peace, resting in the truth that His help is on the way, always.
Recommended Song for This Week: Help Is on the Way – Toby Mac
“Sometimes it’s days, Sometimes it’s years, Some face a lifetime of falling tears. But He’s in the darkness, He’s in the cold, Just like the morning, He always shows…Help is on the way.”
Little Did She Know 