When Someone Sins Against You

Don't Let the Sin Against You Produce Sin in You

It is a day like today that I am grateful for this space – a place I haven’t had since my blogging days.

And yet, it is also a place I know I must enter with caution. Because these are the spaces — where no one can save you from yourself — that self-monitoring becomes your greatest yet most elusive friend.

I tread lightly with my words. Because someone made me mad.

Perhaps I shouldn’t admit that in a public post. But here we are.

Most of my relationships are long-running. This is just how I roll. I love hard and if I take honest inventory, I need to forget hard things more. I keep long friendships and can hold a grudge or two. I don’t like the latter about myself.

Jesus and I have been dealing with bitter roots for several years. I’m getting better. He stays digging.

Can I be even more honest? As a justice-driven person, my tendency is to get mad. Things upset me, or threaten to, on a weekly basis. The fact I can co-exist and even enjoy friendship with a handful of people who consistently get under my skin is truly the continued work of the Holy Spirit.

But there is a person or two who is a regular thorn in my side. I refuse to wield my spiritual gift as a weapon, but what do you do when discernment gives you intel on their true story? It is hard for me to give someone the benefit of the doubt when over time they have proven themselves to be what I suspected of them. It is even harder when their appearance to others is not reality. (Enter the pesky justice meter.)

I realize that in sharing my heart this way, it is vulnerable and risky. I do not think the internet is the place for pointed confession. I do, however, think that more spiritual leadership needs to be honest about things we struggle with, as we are all very much the same.

Human, right?

Maybe you think it is wrong of me to get mad…or to hold a grudge…or to keep record of wrong-doing…and you would be correct.

This is not a post to justify a behavior.

It is a post to say: I’m imperfect, and I need God to help me.

I saw this meme and it struck me so deeply. It spoke to my heart after wrestling with being mad at this person who remains a thorn in my side:

Maybe you can relate in some way to this post. It could be that the person you are thinking of right now is just a mild irritation for you – or maybe like me, they have hurt you time and again, in ways that aren’t for public consumption.

God is really good at being God. He knows what that person has done and is doing – their motive, no matter what anyone else thinks or sees – is not hidden from Him.

You and I can rest in Him handling what needs to be handled on that end.

And in the process, we need to pray and make sure that we aren’t compromising ourselves and sin isn’t being produced in us. It so easily happens, before we know it, oftentimes.

Don’t let the sin against you produce sin in you.

I’ll be thinking about this for a long time. In fact, I am going to print it out and put it up in my office somewhere.

Thank you, whoever wrote it. I sure need it.