Vengeance is a Waste of a Life

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves,
but leave the way open for [God’s] wrath;
for it is written, Vengeance is Mine,
I will repay (requite), says the Lord.

– Romans 12:19 (Amplified Bible, Classic Edition)

One of the hardest lessons I have had to learn is how to shut up. I love to talk. I love learning, and I know that speaking with people will give me experience to back up the knowledge that I am obtaining through books and other media. But sometimes the best wisdom to apply is silence. Not to intimidate. Not to make a point to another person. Not because you feel obligated to stay silent out of fear. But silence as a way to take back the power of standing in your God-given authority found in believing in your own dignity and self-worth because you are made in the image of God and believing God for who He is – He is Jehovah Tsidkenu: The Lord Our Righteousness. Righteousness is BEING in right relationship with God and others and involves living a life aligned with God’s character, will, and justice, rather than achieving human moral perfection

He is the judge of my heart, my character, and even my feelings – not another person. No person deserves that seat of authority in your life. Godly counsel is different than allowing someone to be the JUDGE of your life, including making yourself the judge.

A lot of the time, when we choose to defend ourselves after we have spent the time taking it silently, out of fear of confrontation, when we start to speak up, we start to speak from a wounded place, and it leads to what we fear: escalation. When two individuals speak from an unprocessed wounded place, they will create more wounds. When two individuals realize they are whole in Jesus Christ, fully healed, while still in the process of healing certain other things that only sanctification and refinement can do, something solid can grow. Even holding space for those who don’t believe or have left the faith is important because if you can see them for who they are and get to know them as a soul, as an individual, without projecting wounds or insecurities, without putting expectations on them, something beautiful can still grow. Why? Because we know others because God first knew us, and in getting to know God for who He truly is, we can see others fully and see them for who they are. If we know we are fully known and loved by Him, and understand the texture of that connection, we will be able to hold space for others to cultivate them.

But this is why boundaries are important. Knowing whether someone sees you for you is a process in itself. Some people have pushed me away for the faith and convictions I carry. When they knew they couldn’t get what they wanted from me that easily, when they recognized that my standards were not just talk, but actual action, they left. Many unhealed men want easy validation because your attention as a woman feeds their ego, and they have built their identity in how much admiration they get from women, even if they don’t fornicate with them. Healed men see women as their sisters, treating them with the same consideration and respect they would a blood relative. To me, a whole man does not compete with men or women because he is assured of who he is in Jesus Christ. He knows he has weaknesses, that God is his strength, that he’s always growing, and his character is rooted in the Truth of Love, and practicing the True Way of Life (Jesus Christ IS the Truth, the Way, and the Life!)

When I first became a believer, I saw the world in more black-and-white terms. If you weren’t professing Jesus, then I didn’t want to consider you romantically whatsoever. I did it out of fear of getting hurt again, but I used biblical language to justify it, believing I already understood what it meant to relate to men healthily. I didn’t, but thankfully God knew that and would use my bad boundaries to strengthen and heal me.

At the beginning of my walk, I befriended a man at my first full-time job, falling for him despite him not believing in God. Looking back, what I liked was his interest in me. I still had the memory of my wounds in my consciousness of having given myself fully to a man before and that’s what was powering my attraction to this colleague turned friend turned “lover.” I do think we thought we were loving, but really he tolerated me and I treated him like a project, which is not the same thing as loving someone fully for who they are, as love is meant to be.

Before him, another man had shattered my heart into pieces and then blamed me for his actions. I took accountability for the harm I had caused, I apologized and called him to have closure, but he ghosted me. He never apologized, even though I offered olive branches as God led. I made sure he knew that I believed that reconciliation could be birthed between us. But because I kept equating him speaking to me as him loving me and being chosen, I kept abandoning myself. God told me that we were meant to reconcile, but I kept being angry it wasn’t happening at my timing. Not understanding that reconciliation meant making both him and I completely new. That takes time, but the silence in the process of it all became excruciating because it cause heavy doubt about whether any of his emotions were truly ever real or not. God kept telling me they were. But I got to the point of releasing it, first out of frustration and then out of respect for myself. If God really meant for us to be together, then it would be born in his spirit and then manifest in his soul, leading to an organic reunion.

I started to deeply understand that whether he loved me or not didn’t mean I could never be loved again. If Jesus is the lover of my soul, then surely God had something better if this reconnection never happened. I would never pray for God to force someone to feel a specific way about me (not that He would even answer that – He respects us too much to mess with our free will. God made me understand I had given him too much authority over how I felt about myself, and that was a lousy foundation for a solid partnership meant to last, build a solid foundation, and birth a fruitful future together. That’s why it was necessary that he left, so I could find myself only needing my validation founded in God’s truth and HIS validation. I still love him and I believe God when He says He will restore us.

Something else I have learned is that there is a difference between men who profess Jesus with their mouth but are far from it in their hearts and in living that truth out as a spiritual discipline. As I was waiting for the reconciliation, I fell for a man who met me while reading the Bible. We hit it off and grew a friendship, with him coming to church for the first time in years. The week we started dating, that Sunday, he couldn’t make it to meet my pastor and for us to get Godly counsel. When my Bishop prophesied over me, I felt the Lord was telling me to wait for the man he said would reconcile with me. I decided to follow the voice of God, but my feelings had not changed yet. Not until I was wounded by him when he asked me, “So, what are we? friends with benefits?”

When he said those words, I felt crushed by the weight of feeling disrespected and for hoping that this man would fight for me, even if that meant ignoring a prophecy that seemed unlikely to happen. But I’m grateful for that experience, because it truly made me understand what it means for a man to have the form of godliness but lack the power thereof. True spiritual power transforms your soul because your spirit comes alive with the Truth. I learned that when I tried to let go of this man, believing that since feelings organically grew with a fellow believer, maybe God would bless this union. He didn’t. Because He saw something there: this man did not have the emotional, mental, and spiritual capacity to be equally yoked with me. (Not a judgement of who he is, but in compatibility of purpose).

In all of this, I never prayed for anyone’s downfall. Just for them to be blessed with healing, growth, wisdom, understanding, and for each of these men to find their future wives. I never wanted to impede what God has for me and for them. To serve God is to be selfless.

But GOD!

God showed me that what I also needed to pray for was to be vindicated. I blamed myself for all of the pain that I allowed men to cause me, thinking that was taking accountability on my part, begging God not to let me hold onto ANY unforgiveness, scared that my heart was too corrupted to let go, that some unforgiveness would hide somewhere deep in my heart and that wound would impede me from having the capacity to recognize who was meant to grow in purpose with me.

Deep down I always think, “Who am I not to forgive? If God forgives me, how could I not forgive someone made in His image?” So God showed me that part of healing is ACCEPTING HIS JUSTICE, which was something I struggled with because how is it that you get justice for wrongs done based in wounds that you gave access to.because of your own wounds? How do you measure righteousness in all of that. Only God could tell me because sometimes I felt justice meant — “let them feel what I feel.” But that is revenge, not God’s righteousness.

God judges those who won’t repent with his wrath, after many chances for them to surrender to Him, and He disciplines those who do repent and turn to face Him without hiding, making excuses, or lying about how they actually feel. So instead of judging them in my heart or mind, I let them go to God, honest about the pain, and accepting anything God told me – whether His judgment would be wrath or discipline was ALL up to Him. Not me. I don’t know the depths of their souls to know what would make the most sense, but God does. All I know, is the feelings I feel (release e•motion = energy in motion), knowledge I hold, and the belief that fuels me to keep going.

Today, I have no suitors, not the man God told me would pursue, and not any of the previous men in my life. If anything, some confusing feelings started to arise for a man who I thought was only showing me nothing but kindness and genuine connection, without any ulterior motive, but alas attention when you’re starving for connection almost looks like the same thing. I love him like a brother, and considered him a close friend, and knowing we make a great team makes me think we could build a good future. He is even curious about my faith, and knew how to seem thoughtful about it too. But sometimes we project what God has told us about someone if they were to choose Him for who they are now, and that was how those confusing feelings began. Let people’s actions speak for who they are now. Potential is never holy ground. Sanctification is. Both are different, though they momentarily look similar.

Because I valued his friendship, and because that prophecy was still at the back of my mind, I chose to surrender my feelings for him to God. I had grown accustomed to him being someone I could speak to about almost anything, despite us not being from the same kingdom. You see, a kind person when operating from their own flesh will always look to satisfy their own needs over seeing how to serve your needs. Yet we are called to serve one another in the Kingdom of God. So instead of cutting him loose sooner, I would make excuses by abandoning my needs and being overly understanding of who he is and why he moved the way he did. Until God made his character now clear to me, instead of living in the “but, maybe’s.”

Who God has for me will align to His HOLY will. I declare in prophetically, speaking from the Spirit of Truth, Grace, and Mercy. This means that it’s up to the Man of God Jesus has for me to surrender to God so He can be aligned to God’s will. It’s my responsibility to stay aligned with God by staying surrendered to His Holy Will. That is TRUE accountability. Together we encourage one another to keep walking in the way of God, rather than trying to save one another, as the movies tend to portray love as.

You can’t change the past, you can only walk towards destiny by choosing the RIGHTeous choice today. TODAY. Not later.

It’s been a hard lesson for me too.

I’m learning how to fully let go emotionally, while still having an honest space for those feelings, which has been a process. There are days when I find myself asking God to cancel the prophecy, as I often get tired of waiting when my only source to keep holding on is my faith, because faith DOES NOT diminish your humanity nor your feelings. Because I hope that the reconciliation will be two-in-one: not just a blossoming friendship but a fruitful partnership. It’s scary to write this publicly where he can see this. This is how God made me to operate though: vulnerable, real, and with sensitivity to love. I can’t help being the romantic that I am.

To diminish feelings is to suppress them. Walking by faith and not by sight doesn’t mean ignoring emotions, but using our emotions to gauge what God is healing, confirming, and leading us to. The fruit of the Spirit carries an emotional energy and vibration that cannot be counterfeited. So know yourself fully, so you aren’t a slave to your nervous system’s triggers by surrendering your mind, will, and emotions to Jesus Christ, and He will respond with something more beautiful than you could have imagined in your own consciousness — and imagination of sorts but also, yet something deeper like a spiritual neurological system God implemented in the Universe to explain faith in action in a scientific matter. Maybe that’s why people confuse the Universe for God. I know I did.

Faith honors humanity when fully aligned with Jesus Christ.

You know what is funny? The enemy can mimic love so well through the use of fantasy. When I chose to let go of my feelings for the man that IS currently in my life (we work together), it was originally because I couldn’t picture not having his friendship for the rest of my life. Yet he had never expressed that depth of care for me. I was his “work buddy” while he was someone I loved like a brother, someone I would confide in, and someone who I thought genuinely saw my value. I was wrong. Before I saw how wrong I was, those feeling would cause me to imagine a beautiful life fantasy together – one where we would make art, travel and work together. He would say he was cynical about love, yet I would still think he was a romantic at heart. I saw myself in him and he knew that. He wanted me to see him in this light because it validated his pride and ego. He knew that when he’s feeling sad and he denied it, that I can see it in his eyes and would offer a hug, encouraging words, and a listening ear. And because I would pray for him, I started to feel protective over him spiritually. Sometimes because I would see the growth in him, I would start to imagine us growing together even more intimately, walking more closely together, building legacy. If our purposes aligned in God, if God marked this as something deeper, I would open my heart to him all the way and take the leap of faith and be with him, but only if he pursued me like a gentleman. But life can NOT be built on “if’s.” It must be built on truth of who someone is, not who you hope for them to be one day.

I find myself taking every imagination captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ now, because the enemy loves to manipulate our feelings so we obsesses over someone so we think it is love. Obsession looks like devotion in the beginning, until the mask falls. I believe everything in my life must resonate with His Spirit, including imaginations. Besides, some imaginations are based in what someone else is projecting onto you, which usually points to an inner wound that needs to be healed. Even if they deny it with their words (the Holy Spirit will never lie to you!), people tell on themselves based on the psychological patterns they abide in.

People who don’t love themselves love controlling the narrative that other people have of them, so they have mastered the art of appearing righteous and / or loving, and I tend to assume people are being genuine because of emotional intimacy, but what I needed to also understand is that some people love you for the emotional labor that you do for them, not for who you are. So jealousy is felt, but not mentioned, because being honest would mean that their own conception of who they are would be destroyed in that instance. God always exposes someone’s manipulative tactics if all they were doing was taking the healing your provided for them, rather than pouring back into the friendship in a genuine manner. We are people, not vending machines.

For there is nothing hidden
that shall not be disclosed,
nor anything secret
that shall not be known and
come out into the open.

– Luke 8:17 (Amplified Bible, Classic Edition)

Casting down every vain imagination is a discipline I’m exercising every day because I see the future God has for him a lot more than he thinks, and it draws me in, so I always have to remind myself I am choosing to continue living in purpose by focusing on whatever Jesus Christ wants for my life. Also, I’ve been used to the bare minimum in my life, so I thought that the kindness this man I deemed my friend showed me was genuine love, given that I knew he believed in God a long time ago, and had even been a willing vessel in serving God. I let that information cloud my understanding, thinking it was God’s understanding and wisdom, rather than me using history to justify my own feelings towards him. He was familiar and therefore comfortable to me.

When I care, I DEEPLY care. What I thought I saw in his heart has some elements of truth to it, but most of it was hidden underneath a counterfeit light, that turned out to be deep darkness, like the “enlightenment” and “wokeness” of the world, it is empty sight based on flawed human understanding. I love him, but I’m grateful for the clarity that has freed me from holding onto the burdens of his own life. There is a time where we minister so much, that we need to let go, because otherwise, that would give them access to abuse the grace God is showing them through you. And God does NOT stand for abuse. He is understanding judge, not a benevolent pushover. He is a God of boundaries and order, NOT confusion.

Prophecy is what God wants because prophecy IS the Spirit of Jesus. So I let go of the “could be’s” with some sadness, but also knowing that this must be the best timeline we could live. Choosing God’s will over any desire to play out a movie we watched unconsciously is better. Now, who is to say God cannot put out a decree if you have favor with Him? Humans have free will and prophecy hinges on people’s free wills aligning with God’s will.

So what I have learned from all of this? How is this tied to God’s justice?

Well, I could have easily fornicated out of a reactive belief that I was hurting the man in the prophecy, in a vain attempt to make him jealous. I could have also pursued the man in the friendship I broke off if I didn’t value myself so much. I have enough self-respect to understand that being a woman who pursues is outside of God’s order. If the enemy convinced me I could get him to love me the way I want to be loved by lying to myself instead of being honest about where we are both at in life and where our hearts’ desires lie, I would have forced a lustful relationship that would have caused destruction in many areas of my life. Because my deepest desire is to abide and live out God’s will in my life, God saved me from the self-sabotaging cycles I kept finding myself in due to a lack of love towards myself as His precious princess. God’s justice plays out in the actions that we take, because heeding to His voice is the pathway for Him to redeem all the years of people’s injustice through their mistreatment by getting us to implement a system meant to protect us: Holy Boundaries.

Then He gives us peace to know that these people will ALL reap what they have sown, meaning the pain and confusion they caused me will come back to them in the manner needed for them to gain the Fear of the Lord and repent. If they don’t, death is their portion because God says whoever sows to the flesh, reaps death while sowing to the Spirit means reaping true divine life that comes from Him.

So, I won’t wait until he notices me. I will surrender my timing for the man in the prophecy and trust that God will do what He said He would because He is not man that He should lie nor man that He should repent. I’ll stay present by living fully in God’s will, conscious of who He is, that He lives in me, and that He gives me all I need. His understanding for my life is what causes me to follow His wisdom. His way of living is what creates joy and peace in my spirit. His loving nature keeps me patient and kind. My own limited understanding through a logical framework of my feelings, is a shadow of the healing that the processing of my e•motions through God’s mind, His Spirit speaking tenderly through stillness in His presence. Let Him rewire your nervous system by meditating and being still in Him.

The enemy tries to keep planting dreams of something more with this man I unfriend because I see him so often and he uses my history of romanticizing previous male friendships, and because the past two men I had dated while being a follower of Christ started out as a friendship. But my relationship with God makes me believe in the prophecy God gave me. And I have wrestled with God about this connection, and God showed me that I am too valuable to settle for breadcrumbs of love when I give feasts.

If I wasn’t so aware of why holding onto this imagination isn’t good for me, I would live here for years until something more happened. But waiting around for someone to choose you is not fun. You can love someone deeply without being romantically entangled with them. Not every close connection is meant to be something more, and not every friendship is meant to last. Let God expose the hidden enemies rather than feeling validated in being liked by so many people.

“Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God.
If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.”

– Galatians 1:10 (New Living Translation)

Faith has to be at the center of everything. Therefore, God’s justice must prevail in every aspect of my life, including being vindicated from the pain of choosing wrong based on potential in the past and giving myself so fully to so many men just like the woman at the well with the multiple husbands, rather than assurance of faith.

If God is at the center. If He gives the okay, if a man fights for you through God, then that’s the most romantic love story ever, because that reflects the heart of God deeply.

Also, my name means princess and I expect a prince, and what does a prince do? He pursues with chivalry. It means the character of royalty, not the performance. It’s found in the mindfulness of action, the depth of self-mastery, a conscious meditation of Jesus Christ and how He is found in everything. Nothing is complete without Him.

Me trying to be petty to someone who I let hurt me is a waste of time, energy, and of life. Vengeance is the Lord’s not our right. His vengeance, His justice, His righteousness is his gift meant to heal the parts of our hearts that were stepped on, like the Rose of Sharon was stepped on. The value and aroma were still present, even in the pain of being overlooked and being treated unfairly when what was being offered was genuine love and support.

I do not hold ill will to anyone who hurts me, because I was the one who gave them access to hurt me (you decide who you let into your soul), I know that whatever unfolds next will be in God’s will, and He will keep me innocent in His court because of the pure heart posture I am staying aligned to. And He will do the same for you, if you just believe and surrender to Jesus Christ.