Vengeance

Romans 12:19
Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for His wrath. For it is written: Vengeance belongs to Me; I will repay says the Lord.
 
I struggle with thinking that it’s my job to exact all vengeance. I feel like I need to make it right, get the other guy back when wronged, or hurt them before they can hurt me. This is a painful way to live at times. The core of this behavior stems from right thinking. God wants us to speak out against injustice and to protect those who can’t protect themselves (Proverbs 29:7). However, my flesh takes this God-given thought and seizes an opportunity to sin. I go over and beyond. When someone cuts me off in traffic, I want to let them know about it. During conflict, I want to be condescending to the other party to let them know how wrong they are and how right I am. When an umpire or official would make a call that negatively affected my team, I wanted to let them know in the most degrading way possible how wrong they were. When someone says or does something that hurts my wife or kids’ feelings, I want to inflict physical harm on them. Go ahead and judge me if you want, I’m just stating the truth. I’m not condoning this type of thinking and behavior, but it is reality sometimes. It’s also wrong. I’m a work in progress. 
 
God’s word tells us to always leave room for God’s vengeance. He tells us not to repay evil for evil (Romans 12:17). This is one of the hardest truths in God’s word for me to grasp. It goes against everything this world teaches. This doesn’t mean don’t protect yourself from threats or danger to you or others. But it does mean to not go beyond that. Don’t think it’s your job to exact all vengeance in the world. Most people that have lied about me and schemed against me have eventually faced their consequences, some haven’t. It’s not my job to exact vengeance, that’s God’s job. Be careful not to get self-righteous here, we’ve all wronged or slandered someone in the dark that we don’t want to come to light. Don’t poison your soul with the responsibility of vengeance. That’s up to God. After all, everything hidden will eventually be revealed. 
 
Luke 12:2
There is nothing covered that won’t be uncovered, nothing hidden that won’t be made known.