What Happens When You Get Wronged?

Yikes, been a number of days since I've been in blogger world...hope all is well with my friends out there.

Been looking at more Scripture from 1 Peter that's making me re-think my life.

It starts (in 1 Peter 2:18) with one of those passages that makes 21st century, "enlightened" Christians cringe: "slaves, in reverent fear submit yourselves to masters." Yikes, that passage was used in way messed-up ways to defend American slavery.

But as he unpacks it, he moves to the example of Jesus: "When they hurled insults at him, he did not retaliate, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly."

So the point is not that justice doesn't matter. The point is that Jesus did not take justice into his own hands. He suffers mis-treatment because he believes at his core that his Father is good and trustworthy.

So here's the question: who do I trust to enact justice? Am I willing to entrust justice to my good Father or do I take it into my own hands? When I'm done wrong, how quick am I to be the instrument of "justice"--or "justice" as I perceive it--and how willing am I to release my demands to be respected and release my rights trusting that my Father in heaven will see to it that those things are taken care of?

Perhaps a nuance here to this would be that making all things right is always and finally God's work. He is the only just one.

In order to enact His justice, God most often employs people. Real people in real time: Abraham Lincoln and William Wilberforce were instruments of justice to end slavery--Wilberforce knew this, not sure if Abe did or not.

But the question remains before us: are we willing to submit our rights to the Father and entrust ourselves to the one who judges justly? Are we willing to be wronged and before we react in vengeance, are we willing to seek the Father, entrust ourselves to the Father and submit our desire to enact justice? Are we willing to wait and see if God would have us or someone else to act... or to NEVER see it in this lifetime?

I'm not sure that I am...but it seems that if I'm called to be like Jesus, to follow him, that I need to be moving in that direction.