When It Hurts
It’s not what you did when it was easy that counts.
It’s what you did when it was hard. It’s how you handled things when life
wasn’t going your way. It’s how you treated others when it cost you something
or even when it hurt.
There is a conversation between two characters in one
of my favorite movies. A king has a newly arrived lord sit with him and talk to
him. After explaining that the whole world is like a game of chess, and that
lives are played out like a game, he says this: King: “Remember
that howsoever you are played or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone,
even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you
stand before God, you cannot say, ‘But I was told by others to do thus,’ or
that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice.”
I love this line because so often we want to say we
did what we did because others told us, or because it was a reaction to someone
else’s actions. Self-control is often mentioned as a virtue in scripture. It is
even described as a component of love and the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23, Proverbs 16:32). Self-control means you do what is right no matter
what is going on around you.
It’s not about how nice you were to people on the
road when you had plenty of time. It’s about how you treated them when you were
running late. It’s not about how you treated the people that agreed with you
and treated you well, but how you treated the people that hated you and could
not give you anything in return. It’s not about what you did before the eyes of
others, but what you did when no one was looking. It’s not about how you
treated your family in public, but how you treated them when you were in
private.
Guys, this is hard. I get that. I know that sometimes
we look at our lives and think how differently things might have been if people
hadn’t hurt us. But if we do what we do based on the worst things done to us,
we are still giving power to those who have hurt us. We are responsible for us.
We cannot accurately lay blame or punishment on others. But we can choose, today, that we are going to live
according to what God has called us.
No more excuses. No more blaming others for how our
lives have turned out, or how our day went. We get to be us, the real us, the
God-called us, the divinely renewed us. Lay down your pain and shame. God knows
you are hurt. He does not look on it lightly, but he loves you and wants what
is best for you. He wants to see you stand tall and strong no matter how the
winds blow, or how the waves beat against you.
So next time you are tempted to let someone else ruin
your day, or you want to call back the pain of old wounds and act out your
revenge on the world around you, remember you won’t be able to tell God that
it’s their fault for how you acted. But, he will reward those who stood up and
did the right thing even when it hurt.
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