My hubby knows me well enough (after 25 years, he’d better) than to fuss at me for getting upset when someone clearly steps on the rights of someone else.
You know what I mean. The turkey that drives up the median to make everyone he passes wait when he shoves his way back into line. The woman who brings ice cream to the check-out and leaves it melting in the candy and magazine rack. And everyone in virtual-land has been screaming about Obamacare. So many are furious over the Supreme Court’s decision that it is a clearly acceptable form of taxation, even after Obama himself said there wouldn’t be any tax associated with it.
I could get really annoyed, but I hate politics so I won’t go there.
I think part of the reason I hate party politics is because the whole thing is built on stepping atop the bones of the one you crush to achieve your own greatness. Obviously not all leaders do that, but when they do, I’m ready to don my red cape and start spouting Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Shakespeare, and Underdog cartoons.
So intense is my dislike for bullying leaders that my sweet hubby has protected me more than once from those that get too close to our family. He omits many of the facts so I won’t get too angry. It eats at me.
And that’s okay because Paul warns us many times about anger. “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry” and “In your anger do not sin.” Both from Ephesians 4. We are not created to be doormats, but we are created to love. When it comes to bullying leaders, whether they be political, business, religious, or family, we are called to be obedient to those in authority.
Unless they are no longer in authority over us. At that point, orders and rants can be shrugged off. Like our patriotic forefathers who realized a big-picture truth about a bully and then had the courage to remove him from having authority over them.
We do the same thing when we move from one job to another. From one church to another. From one HOA to another. We’re always under some authority, but we do have the blessing, at least at this point of time in America, to choose the authority we will remain under.
So even if your superior is a bully, obedience is required. Even if he or she is no longer your superior, scripture demands love and forgiveness. No, it’s not optional.
“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death–even death on a cross!” Php. 2:5-8
It’s not my job to try to punish those who unfairly take advantage of obedient and humble followers of Christ, or of organizations built on sincerity of Christian love. I don’t have to. God will have His vengeance His own way.
After all, Christ himself bore the ultimate humiliation. Falsely accused, he endured the beatings for my mistakes. He took the crown of thorns for my sin. The death that I deserve, he died.
If God Himself can go through that for my benefit, I can endure the frustration of my sense of justice when a bully strikes, whether at me or a loved one.
Because Christ asks me to.
Your turn in this season of independence. Do you feel crushed? Or feel the pain of others who are crushed. Different situations call for different behaviors, but in everything love. How can you put that into practice in your issue.
Marji Laine 