hurt – Moment to Moment (Bible blog)

Biblical principles: When people repeatedly hurt you

Dealing with hurt is difficult. Dealing with hurt from those you once trusted is even worse.

What do you do when someone continually hurts you? Do we just take it? What does Jesus say?

Fortunately, we don’t have to guess.

It seems that as the disciples were arguing among themselves about who was the greatest, they had wounded each other, resulting in cracks in their relationships. Jesus knew this, and that’s why he gave them the instruction we see in this passage.

He said,

If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. (Matthew 18:15)

Notice two things here. First, if someone hurts you, you are not to wait for that person to come to you and apologize to you. You are to go to them.

Often times we are so angry at the other person, that we demand that they come to us and apologize for what they did.

But that kind of attitude is not one of peace, but of pride. And God calls us to be peacemakers.

Remember that in the Beatitudes, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” (Matthew 5:9).

That doesn’t just mean bringing peace between others that you know. It means bringing peace in your own relationships.

But if there’s one thing that will prevent peace in a relationship, it’s pride.

Furthermore, there are many times when people hurt us, and they don’t know it. As a result, we could wait forever, and they’ll never come. So Jesus says, if someone hurts you, you go to them.

Second, notice that there’s no room for gossip or slander here. Jesus doesn’t say, “If your brother hurts you, go tell the world about it.” He says, “Go to the brother that hurt you and talk about it.”

And hopefully, when they understand the hurt they’ve caused you, they will apologize and your relationship will be restored.

A key point, by the way.

If someone confronts you like this, remember that what’s not important is if you feel your words or actions should have hurt them.

What’s important is that your words or actions did hurt them. And it’s on you not only to apologize, but to make sure you avoid such actions in the future. That’s also what it means to be a peacemaker.

But what if you confront a person who hurts you, and they refuse to acknowledge their wrong?

Then Jesus says bring one or two other people with you. Share with them what happened. Not to gossip or badmouth the other person. But with the hope that with their help, reconciliation will happen.

It’s entirely possible that with their counsel, you realize that you are simply misunderstanding the other person. Or perhaps with their help, the other person will come to understand they were wrong.

Either way, remember the goal of bringing in these people is peace.

If a person still refuses to hear you, then bring in the church. You don’t have to bring in the whole congregation. But perhaps bring in a pastor or another respected person of the church and have them try to mediate.

But if that fails, Jesus says,

Treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. (Matthew 18:17).

What does that mean?

Basically, it means to change your expectations of them. Don’t expect them to act like a brother or sister in Christ, because they are not acting that way. Treat them as an unbeliever who doesn’t know Christ.

We don’t expect unbelievers to act like believers, and if a person refuses to repent, we should stop expecting them to act like a believer.

Keep your guard up against them. Don’t fool yourself into thinking they’ve changed until they repent, and you see signs of that repentance.

And if at all possible, try to avoid them, much as people avoided tax collectors in those days.

Why?

Because you’re bitter?

Because you’re angry?

No. You need to let go of those feelings because they will bind you up.

Rather, avoid the other person because they are dangerous to you. As long as they can’t see their own wrong, you’re always in danger of being hurt by them. So avoid them.

How about you? How are you dealing with the people who have hurt you?

Anger, hurt, reconciliation

Marriage relationships don’t always go swimmingly. In this world broken by sin, anger and hurt between husband and wife are a given. The question is, how do we respond to it?

That’s what we see in this passage.

Most commentators take this to be a kind of dream sequence. But it depicts the feelings that often occur in marriage.

Perhaps the woman’s husband was late in coming home that night. Perhaps for work. Perhaps for other reasons.

And so she went to bed in anger and resentment, falling asleep before he came home.

In her dreams, she hears her husband calling, asking her to let him in because the door is locked.

But in her anger, she snaps, “I’m already in bed. Do I have to get up just to let you in?”

In Ephesians 4:26–27, Paul tells us,

“In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.

That we will get angry with our spouse is a given. Inevitably we do things to hurt each other whether we intend to or not.

But Paul charges us not to sin in our anger. Not to hold on to anger or resentment, because in doing so, we give Satan a foothold in our lives, and in this case, our marriage.

But this woman held on to resentment toward her husband for being late.

Maybe he had had a pattern of coming home late. Maybe it was just this one night, but he had failed to call.

At any rate, when he finally came back, she had locked him out.

We may not lock our spouse out of the house (at least I hope you don’t), but how often in our anger do we lock them out of our hearts?

As the spouse locked out, how do we respond?

I think Solomon gives us a clue. He doesn’t try to force his way in. Rather, he simply leaves a sign of his love.

It says in verse 5 that when the woman finally came to open the door for him, she found it covered in myrrh.

In their culture, lovers would do this to show that they had been there. In modern terms, he left her flowers.

Sometimes our spouses get angry with us. Sometimes we feel it’s justified. Sometimes we don’t.

But if we don’t want Satan to get a foothold in our marriage, we shouldn’t respond to anger with anger, but with love.

Apologize, if necessary. And remind them of your love.

In her dream, as she saw her lover’s efforts to reach out, she finally responded, but it was too late. He was gone.

So she went out looking for him. It’s possible as she did so, she was beating herself up for her own attitude, which is perhaps why she dreamed of the watchmen beating her.

When others asked her why she was desperate to find him, she told them of all the things she loved about him.

It is something worth doing, even in our times of anger toward our spouse. It’s easy to focus on all the negative things about them. But it is especially during those times that we should think of all the things we love about them.

And while she talks about his physical features, she also describes him as the one who loves her, as a lover and a friend.

That’s what we should remind ourselves of too. That though our spouse may fail us, they do love us.

Perhaps it’s as her friends ask her, “Where is your lover that we may search for him,” that she awakes to find her husband by her side “browsing among the lilies.” (See chapter 4, verse 5, and chapter 5, verse 13.)

All her anger is forgotten, as she says,

I am my lover’s and my lover is mine. (Song of Solomon 6:3)

Marriage does not become a bed of roses naturally. It takes work. It takes cultivating. And part of that is dealing with our anger and the anger of our spouses in a right way.

How about you? How do you deal with anger in your marriage?