You have suffered wrong, and I do not make light of the pain of your body or the injustice of your purse. But I ask you: which is the more dreadful fate, to be cheated of silver, or to be the one who cheats? For the one who does injustice drinks a poison far more bitter than the cup he pours for another. You have lost money; your landlord, if he does not repent, is losing his own soul. The injury he does you lasts a season; the wounds he inflicts upon his conscience will gnaw him forever, unless the grace of God intervenes. You see him prospering now, unyielding, unremorseful. But his conscience is not asleep, it is merely bound and gagged, and soon enough it will rise up as a judge that cannot be bribed. The unjust man builds his house upon a cliff, and every stone he sets cries out against him. Why do you envy his brief quiet? Better your itching skin and a clear conscience than his health and a heart full of festering theft.
I hear that you have sought prayer for two months, and no answer seems to come. Yet is this silence not itself an answer? The furnace of affliction is God’s workshop, where He forges saints. If you were immediately delivered, you might remain untested silver. But now you are being refined. Will you give thanks in this as in everything? For to bless God when the sun shines is common even among the brutes; but to sing the doxology when the storm breaks, that is the mark of a son of God. Your landlord’s stubbornness is an anvil on which your own patience is hammered. Do not let it strike sparks of rage or despair. Count it all joy when these trials press you, for the testimony of a conscience that does not strike back is a glory that outshines all earthly courts.
Nevertheless, I do not tell you to cease seeking what is rightfully owed. Justice is a good; restitution is commanded even under the Law. But examine the spirit in which you ask. Is it for the quieting of your needs, or for the humiliation of your enemy? Do you want the money, or do you want him to smart? If your heart lusts for his sorrow, you have already stepped into the mire you hope he leaves. Let your prayer be: “O Lord, touch his heart as You touched the heart of Zacchaeus, that he may restore fourfold, not for my sake only, but that he may flee the wrath to come.” For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole security deposit and forfeits his soul? The same cup of greed that he pours for you, he drinks down in secret, and its dregs will be vomited up on the Day of Judgment. Your skin may bear scars; his conscience is already scarred more deeply, and unless repentance comes, the fire that never goes out will sear what no salve can reach.
I said that the unjust man suffers more than his victim, and I repeat it: his sleep is broken by thick-coming fancies, his laughter is hollow, his gain is a burning coal in his hand. Even now, when he counts his withheld coins, the stamp of his own accusation is on them. And you, if you bear this trial without cursing, without threatening, without hating, your soul stands in heaven even while your feet walk the earth. The itch of your flesh, the loss of your silver, these are light afflictions that prepare a weight of glory. But if you brood over them, feeding the worm of resentment, you let the devil dance in your wound.
What, then, should you do? First, search your own conscience: have you at any point repaid evil for evil, or harbored a secret wish for his downfall? If so, repent. Then, with that cleared, continue to ask the Lord, but ask with open hands and a free heart. Let your petition be for his awakening, yes, but also for your own healing, not only of the skin, but of any root of bitterness that may be spreading beneath. For what is easier to heal: a scar on the body, or a hidden canker in the soul? One salve may take years to work; the other, if neglected, will destroy you in a moment.
Give thanks, then, for this school of patience. When the landlord sees you unshaken, when you return his threats with calm blessing, you pour coals of fire on his head, not the fire of destruction, but the fire that melts wickedness. And if he does not melt, yet you are pure. The tribunal of your conscience will bear witness for you, and the Judge of all will not forget. But if you let your heart become a debtor’s prison of grievances, you will make yourself his companion in misery. The choice is yours: to be an example of Christ’s meekness, or to be another link in the chain of wrath.
I will pray that his conscience is stirred, as you ask, but I pray more earnestly that yours remains unspotted by the contest. May the Holy Spirit bring him to repentance, and may you stand before the Lord not clutching a receipt of payment, but robed with the patience of the saints.