Instinctive Reactions
1 Peter 3:9 Don’t do wrong to anyone to pay them back for doing wrong to you. Or don’t insult anyone to pay them back for insulting you. But ask God to bless them. Do this because you yourselves were chosen to receive a blessing.
When someone treats you badly, when they ignore you or insult you … how do you respond? The answer for most of us most of the time is that we respond instinctively, treading the same, well-worn path amidst conflict.
Look, none of us likes to be ignored, to be slighted, to be thought or spoken ill of. None of us wants the people close to us to snap at us (as they so often do without thinking). But it happens almost daily. So what’s your instinctive response?
Those with a strong personality type tend to snap back, letting people know exactly what they think. That’s a great way of escalating a conflict, wouldn’t you say?
Others remain silent, but only to plot their revenge. You know the saying: don’t get angry, get even. How good is that going to be for their relationship with that person?
Others still take it all to heart, curling up in an emotional ball of pain. What does that do for their self-worth going forward? But there is another option.
1 Peter 3:9 Don’t do wrong to anyone to pay them back for doing wrong to you. Or don’t insult anyone to pay them back for insulting you. But ask God to bless them. Do this because you yourselves were chosen to receive a blessing.
Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl put it like this: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
So, choose not to fight back. Choose to ask God to bless them instead.
That’s His Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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