God gives us guidelines on how to
behave when injustice happens to us.
Some years ago, I was
bullied in my workplace. In fact, I hate to admit it, but I've been bullied in just about every place I've ever worked. I suppose I feel it makes me some kind of tragic wuss. The meek are indeed blessed. But they are also easily bullied. What we do and how we
behave in the face of injustice will probably depend on our personality, our
value system and whether we have some kind of backup. I didn’t have any backup; I was on my own. The thing I found with workplace bullying,is that people are
very often cowards, when faced with injustice inflicted on someone else. They
will not speak out; they will pretend it
doesn’t exist; they don’t want to get involved; they will just keep their heads
down. Another aspect of injustice, is
that the perpetrator will always pick on someone already vulnerable. When this happened to me, I chose to flee,
because I had no backup; because I had
several other awful things happening in my life at the time; because I’m not a fighter and because the people
bullying me loved a good fight and I knew I couldn’t win. So I left that
workplace.
But the fleeing or
the fighting aside, we still have to deal with this injustice in our own souls
and hearts and minds. Unless we deal
with it, we can become angry and begin to carry a grudge. Fight or flee; whatever the outcome, ultimately we have to let go of the
resentment and hurt it has caused, if we are to live victoriously,
lovingly. Resentment held, will pollute
the rest of our lives. But how do we deal with it?
We must, in our own
time confront what has happened to us.
Meet it head on. We have to embark
on a journey of coping which will end when we accept what has happened to us
and lay it to rest. It’s painful doing this.
But never confronting the hurt, or pretending it didn’t happen, keeps it alive,
because it festers away inside. If we run from the awful feelings, anxiety can
set in.
We can cry out to God
about the injustice of it; God is big;
he can accept us however angry we are;
however victimised or hard-done-by we feel. When our emotions are plundered and battered
by suffering, he can meet us at the foot of the cross, and take it from
us. Conjure up a mind picture of
yourself taking the pain of injustice, and giving it up to him. He is well acquainted with suffering, and
will not turn away.
On a practical level,
we can talk to others, either friends, family, trained counsellors. We can confess our failure to God too,
because there will be times, in this grappling with injustice, when we behave
and think in ways which are less than noble.
Be careful though; dwelling
on injustice, without attempt at healing, bringing it to the surface of our
minds, constantly nursing it without the light of Christ’s mercy to heal and
banish it, breeds resentment, thoughts of reprisal, and prejudice. We have to deal with whatever
injustice has befallen us, then pack it away in the tin trunks of our hearts,
and go on. We have to allow God to heal us;
to surrender to his way of doing things;
to be obedient to his Word, ie bless those who hurt us; pray for those who spitefully use us.
Pay back evil, with good. I didn't say it was easy! This is especially important with people who are close to us. When I was bullied at work, after the process
of fleeing and crying and healing and taking up my life again, I could leave
those people in the past. But it’s
different when the people we feel have wronged us, are those of our families or
friends. And the sting of injustice felt
in families, can often be traced to some sleight over material things, or
money.
When I was a little
girl, in a small rural town, we used to visit my mother’s sister and brother in
another small rural town half an hour away. In my aunty and uncle’s little weatherboard
cottage , there was a beautiful red cedar dresser. It had belonged to my grandmother, and had
been passed to her son (my mum’s brother).
It was huge; it took up almost
the entire wall of their little front room, and reached almost to the
ceiling. It was ornate; the patina of it’s ruby lustre was just
lovely. It was a thing of elegance and beauty. On one occasion, on the way home, my mother
said “I wonder what will happen to that dresser when my brother dies?” He was
21 years older than her. He eventually
died, and the dresser stayed in his house until his wife also died. But then it transpired that the dresser had
been given to a family friend. My mother
was dismayed at the thought of this beautiful possession not coming back to the
family. She felt it should have come to
her, or at least her sister. She grieved
over that dresser, but not a word was said to the friends; she simply accepted that this was how it had
been disposed of, and she didn’t let it cause fights or words between the
family or the friend. She did not let money or mere chattels come between
relationships. It wasn’t spoken of
again. Graciousness is a good stratagem in soothing the sting of injustice.
And that brings me to
the next coping skill. We must forgive
those who visit injustice upon us. To forgive is the very bedrock of Christian faith.
Some of you may
remember the case of John Button. In 1963, at the age of 19, he had an argument
with his girlfriend, Rosemary. She got
out of the car they were in, and walked off in anger. When John Button caught up with her a little
while later, he found her, in the darkness, lying dead on the road. He was convicted of her murder and spent 5
years in gaol. A year after his conviction, the real killer, a serial murderer,
confessed to her killing, but he was not believed, even though he stated this
many times, including a written confession, just before he was hanged for the
murder of other people. John Button spent another 5 years on parole, and it took
37 more years before his conviction was quashed.
But Rosemary’s mother
could not forgive him. For years after, even
in the face of the other man’s confession, she continued to blame John Button,
saying “he took my daughter out, and he didn’t bring her home. It’s his fault
she’s dead”. She clung to that emotional
decision, until her death. Her unwillingness to forgive was heaping more
injustice on John Button, and it imprisoned her too. It added to the pain they had both suffered.
When people have hurt
us, we cannot really forgive in our own strength. That’s why God tells us to pray for them. We
may not always be able to do this with conviction and a heartfelt surge of
goodwill towards them, but we can say to God “I don’t want to pray for this
person but I do, because you’ve commanded me to”. And the way I do it is
this; I distance myself from the
emotional side of things, step away, and I pray just with my mind. Our hearts and emotions have to be a bit
suspended from the hurt of it. But when we can say this, something close to
miraculous begins to happen. It may take a while; it may take some painful searching and honest
reflection, especially if the injustice is very big and has impacted us terribly. It may take years. There will be times of
anger and railing against the injustice of it, but God will create in us
something we can’t do for ourselves. He will give us victory over the hurt and
the injustice; our forgiveness will
dissolve rancour; our resentment will be
replaced by goodwill; for angst we will
be given peace. Over time - and remember that once God has begun a good work in
us, he will bring it to completion…the final healing may not come until we are
resurrected with him in heaven, but the promise is that he will do it; over time, constantly bringing these
terrible injustices to His light shining from the cross, allows us to
forgive. And as this transformation
occurs, you will be changed, as the bible says, from glory to glory. You will have taken into your heart, the very
divinity of God’s character; the
wonderful wings of His overcoming Spirit.
Why do you think those verses about praying for people who use and abuse
us are in the Bible? Is it to make life hard for us? No, it’s because God knows if we cling to our
injustices, we become slaves to them. They become like big river stones in our
pockets, weighing down our spirit-life.
He knows that injustice and forgiveness have to be bed fellows. He knows that the sister of forgiveness ,is
graciousness, and that the one who overlooks a transgression seeks love. He
knows that for justice to prevail in our lives, even if we’ve experienced the
gravest of inequality or prejudice, we must forgive the perpetrator.
Because on that glorious
resurrection day, the Christ won’t ask us “how did you treat the dresser in
your life?” or “How much was that
dresser worth?” He will ask us “how did you treat the person who denied you the
dresser? Did you forgive that person who
used or abused you? Were you noble and
loving in the face of injustice? Did you
speak out for others who suffered injustice? These are the things which are
important to God. These are the things
which will clothe us through eternity. God’s
kingdom is not about stuff, or how much of it we accumulate in our life; it’s not about status or whether we get back
in kind what we give, or about always winning or coming out on top in an
argument. It’s about servanthood and self-sacrifice; it’s about love and forgiveness, in the face
of injustice. That’s how justice
prevails. And God, who is just, will
give us our reward in heaven.
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