It is one thing for us to find hope in the mess of things that are messy just because that’s a part of living in a messed up world with messed up people and plans. But what about when messed up people and messed up plans collide together specifically to mess us up? How do we handle it when we’re no longer in the realm of dealing with messy generalities but intentional efforts to mess us up? What do we do when it feels like we’re stuck in the real-life version of Home Alone, trying to fend off one attack after another from the bad guys? How do we find hope when others deliberately and intentionally desire to make our lives difficult, miserable, and unmanageable?
In the verses from Matthew today, Herod managed to take “malicious” to new heights. Not only did he seek to manipulate the magi and their honorable intentions of worshiping Jesus, but in his malice Herod intended to murder the Messiah, giving his insidious executive order to “kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under” (v.16). That’s messed up! How twisted and insecure does someone have to be to go to those lengths to destroy other people’s families and lives?
For Joseph and his young family though, God directly intervened to disrupt Herod’s plans to mess up the Messiah. “When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up,’ he said, ‘take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’ So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod” (v.13-15). That’s certainly one way to do it – for God to miraculously intervene and thwart the plotting and scheming of others to do harm! And we’re especially grateful he did in this case, particularly because it allowed his own plan of salvation through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection to be carried out for our benefit!
But how realistic is it to expect God to do the same for us? What if our story doesn’t involve an angel visiting us in a dream to guide us to the right solution? When we’re waiting for some “sign” from God to help or direct us when others are plotting and scheming against us and God seems distant or disinterested, what then?
We will come back to this. Before we do, we need to address what is most often the biggest challenge when it comes to others having it out for us. If we can learn to deal with this challenge, we’ll find that the vast majority of cases where others want to mess us up will suddenly start to subside. It’s not easy to do, and in fact many, many people refuse to ever deal with it, but it has the potential to make the biggest impact on others having it out for us. Do you want to know what the biggest difference maker is?
It’s not what; it’s who. And that who… is you. You are the biggest problem when it comes to others having it out for you, because you allow a different story to be told in your head that doesn’t match up with reality. You have a whole drama played out in your head – an entire novel or movie script, sometimes! – of what you think is going on… and more often than not, there is little to no truth to it. You allow yourself to fill in the unknown details of the narrative with your own interpretation, and frankly, what you’re telling yourself in your own mind is just not the least bit true. There is no basis for it, other than that you have chosen to tell yourself this thing or that thing, and so you believe it to be true.
The coworker didn’t do that because she’s trying to ruin your life. Your neighbor didn’t say that to mean it in the way you took it. Your family member may enjoy getting under your skin once in a while, but he actually has other priorities in his own life than making yours miserable. There is no hater hell-bent on destroying you. There is no “universe” conspiring against you. This can be a tough pill to swallow, but – precious few other people are thinking about you as much as you are thinking about you. Sorry. You’re just not that important.
Why do we so quickly presume others have it out for us? Because we are sinfully bent toward playing the victim. “My problems are someone else’s fault.” “I deserve to be happy.” “Other people owe me something.” The key to solving this problem is to start realizing you’re the one causing it. Some of you will start to be in a far better place just by realizing this. Why? Because you get to put an end to it. You can choose to stop making up the drama in your head that is not reality in anyone else’s world but your own. You can start to realize, as Paul did in our Second Lesson today, that you aren’t actually a victim; you’re a victor in Christ. He wrote: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Think about it – this is actually much easier to fix than if someone else really does have it out for me because this I can control. How I handle it is up to me. I can play the victim, or I can realize that in Christ I am the victor.
So how do we know if we’re just guilty of playing the victim or if someone else really does want to mess us up? One way to keep this from happening is to review each word or action the other person took and see if there is any possible way we could reframe it, putting the best construction on it instead of the worst. When we do that we often end up coming to a rather rational explanation for the words or actions of others that didn’t actually have any ill intent at all! Or, simply talk to the other person about it. That, too, might clear up an awful lot. Or, share your concerns with a third person to provide an outside perspective if we’re misreading the situation. Any of these steps will likely reveal more often than not that someone else isn’t actually gunning for you at all.
But… what about when they legitimately are? I said we’d come back to it, so what about cases when someone legitimately wants to mess me up… like Herod in our text today? That was real devilish scheming! Purely evil intentions! How do we handle when the drama is real and not just imagined in our own minds? I’m going to give you three short-term first steps to take and three long-term steps that may take a little longer and be more of a challenge.
Your first three short-term steps: 1) read, 2) pray, 3) share. Do you know what separates the good sports teams from the great ones on any level? It isn’t necessarily that they’ve got the best talent, although that certainly helps; it’s that they execute the basic fundamentals extremely well. Can we say that about theses three spiritual disciplines? Do we execute the fundamentals extremely well? Do we read the Word daily – are we dialed in to God devotionally as a non-negotiable every day? Or is it sporadic? Occasional? Sometimes? If I remember? Recall the bitter pill of realizing that no one else thinks about you as much as you do – that you’re just not that important? Well, there’s one exception: God. God thinks about you. Constantly. You are and always will be important to him. He lived and died for you to forgive you and claim you as his own. He rules everything for you. But if you’re not reading about his love and devotion for you daily in his Word, you forget about it, you doubt it, or you take it for granted. Read the Bible. Every day.
And pray. When others are trying to mess you up, take it to God in prayer. In fact, combine these first two steps by praying through the Psalms – the psalm writers are rich with examples of others trying to mess them up and they then unload those burdens on God. Don’t just sing about taking everything to God in prayer; actually do it! Pour out your heart to him and confide in him.
Then do the same with your brothers and sisters in Christ: share. When we enlist the help of our community of Christians, not only do we find more support to hold us up when attacked, but we can multiply the prayers being offered up on our behalf. We are reminded we aren’t alone. When we neglect to share with others it’s like choosing to take on Satan and his army alone instead of rallying our fellow soldiers to do battle with us. Share – with each other, with your elder, with me, so that we can be there for each other when others want to mess us up.
In addition to these three short-term steps – read, pray, and share – here are three long-term steps that may take some more work: 1) run to God for rest and refuge, 2) love your enemy, 3) thank God for the good he’ll bring out of it.
Your ability to carry out this first one is going to be tied to the level of consistency in your devotional life. The more you read the Word, the better you get at resting in God. Give God the opportunity to be the rock and refuge he claims to be. When we are hard pressed and others are legitimately conspiring against us, aren’t those exactly the times it would make sense to find our refuge in the Lord? When else do we need refuge but from a threat or an attack? Seems like the perfect time to seek out the Lord’s promises of refuge, a refrain so common in the Psalms as if to almost be forgotten in its familiarity. When others are trying to mess us up, doesn’t God promise protection? Deliverance? So let us run to him first – not last. Not as a last resort only after we have exhausted every other possible solution we could imagine. Go to him first for refuge. He will put your problem in perspective. As he bends his ear to hear your worry and concern about others having it out for you, don’t be surprised when he reminds you of how harmless your enemy is compared to The Enemy, our adversary, Satan. When God then reminds you that he crushed Satan’s head by the death and resurrection of Jesus, wonder no more if he can also handle some temporary, earthly threat to your physical or emotional well-being. He has removed the greatest possible threat to you for time and eternity by his victory over the devil. Know then that there is not any human being who poses any sort of the same degree of threat in your life. Run to God for rest and refuge.
That will make the second step of loving your enemy easier to do. This one can be so easily overlooked. We get so focused on the one trying to mess us up that we forget he is the very person Jesus calls us to love. He is my enemy! God is actually giving me the opportunity to carry out what he calls me to do rather than what I want to do: fix it and put an end to it. Maybe what God wants instead is for you to grow in your ability to love your enemy, and that’s why he keeps allowing them in your life. In that way God wants to use you to bless your enemy – by loving him or her! How do you get better at this? Get better at the fundamentals – the first three steps – as well as the first step of resting in God, and you’ll find loving your enemy starts to come more easily.
Finally, thank God on the front end for the good he’ll bring out on the back end of your trial. Recall Joseph’s – not the Joseph of our Lesson today, but Genesis Joseph – reflection upon being reunited with his brothers. He acknowledged their intent to harm him, to mess him up. But what carried more weight for him was that he knew God brought good out of it. He will for you, too. So don’t wait until it happens to thank him – start thanking him now, in the midst of the mess others are trying to make of your life.
Read, pray, share, then as you are able, run to God for rest and refuge, love your enemy, and thank God for the good he’ll bring out of the trouble others try to cause in your life. May these steps help us to find a renewed joy this week as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, and how a gracious God either thwarted or used to his advantage every plot and scheme against his Son to allow him to save us from every mess, both now and for eternity.
