The Lord Is My Avenger – amelia catherine

I decided this year would be focused on “no distractions.” Pretty soon after that, God brought the story of Mary and Martha to my attention. In this story, Jesus comes to the women’s home and Martha, with good intentions, concerns herself with preparations while Mary just sits at the Lord’s feet. When Martha gets frustrated with her sister, Jesus responds that Mary has chosen the one necessary thing. At the time in my life that I read this, I took it as the Lord convicting me of stressing over applications for after graduation. Though my intentions were good in that I wanted to know the Lord’s will for my life, I realized that it was so silly to be trying to figure it out on my own when I could just sit at the Lord’s feet and hear him speak to me.

As the weeks continued, a huge wrong was done against me, multiple times actually. And in trying to decide how to respond, the Lord brought to my attention the story of David. At a point in this story, King Saul pursues David with the intention of killing him though David did nothing wrong. Nevertheless, David never took action to avenge himself. Rather, he declared that the battle was the Lord’s (1 Samuel 17:47) and he wouldn’t place a hand on the Lord’s anointed (1 Sam. 24:10). He would wait until the Lord exalted him and dealt with Saul.

I practiced this, and daily God would provide more scripture to affirm that He saw my situation, he heard my cries, he saw my submission to Him and He truly was my Avenger (Romans 12:19). One of the things God revealed to me was that in both passages of the Bible where Mary is mentioned (the other being where she anoints the Lord’s feet with expensive perfume which Judas says was a mistake since they could have sold it and given the money to the poor), someone is complaining about her or wrongfully accusing her, yet she never speaks. Rather, in both situations Jesus himself comes to her defense. To Martha, he says that Mary has chosen the one necessary thing (Luke 10:41-42). To Judas, Jesus says, “Leave her alone” (John 12:7 & Mark 14:6). How powerful?!

I realized that God doesn’t want us to be concerned with avenging ourselves because it takes our focus off of God himself – it becomes a distraction. He promises to avenge his people (1 Thess. 4:6); He is a Protector and a Defender of his children. Scripture even quotes God as telling Jesus to sit at His right hand until he makes Jesus’ enemy his footstool (Matt. 22:44 and Psalm 110:1). God wants us to rest while He fights our battles. Resting can look unattractive because it seems unjust to not take action. But resting at God’s right hand is a privilege as it is a place of protection, provision, authority, power and closeness to God that will develop an intimate relationship like never before.

My friend came to me about a week ago with a situation where she had been greatly wronged. And as I shared with her this wisdom, she said, “I just want to run and hide.” I said, “Go. Go run and hide…just be sure to do so in the Father.”