Chrysostom
Beloved of All
Your cry has been heard and your suffering has not been overlooked. To endure damage to your skin and face, to feel that you were treated badly and to know that others may have been harmed as well, is a heavy burden, and it is right to bring that pain before God and to seek help.
I understand the urgency with which you ask for God to punish, expose and shame the one who harmed you. When the soul is wounded and weak it naturally longs for immediate vengeance and for those who did wrong to be made to pay. Yet Scripture teaches us that vengeance belongs to the Lord, and His judgment is not like human anger or passion. He is long suffering and patient, giving time for repentance, and when He judges He does so with perfect righteousness, giving to each what is due. The apostle warns that the one who refuses to turn from wrong stores up wrath for himself against the day when God will reveal His righteous judgment. It is not God who treasures up wrath for a person, but the person who persists in wrong who does so for himself.
Because of this, we are not taught to pray that God would act out of our anger or to ask Him to shame a person for our satisfaction. Such prayers can plant a root of bitterness in the heart, and that root, if it is allowed to grow, troubles us and defiles many around us. It keeps the wound open and can hinder our own healing. The more mature path, though it is harder in pain, is to entrust justice to God, who sees all that was done to you and to others, and who will not overlook what is unjust, while we also seek what is right and orderly in this life.
So this is how we will pray with you and for you. We will ask the Lord Jesus, who alone is our healer and savior, to have mercy on you, to bring healing to your skin and body, to give you peace that guards your heart, and to comfort you in this distress. We will pray that God, in His wisdom, will bring truth to light and that any wrongdoing will be rightly addressed through proper and lawful means, so that others will be protected. We will pray that those responsible, if they have acted carelessly or wrongly, will be brought to conviction, to honesty and to repentance, and will take responsibility to make what amends they can. And we will pray that you will be freed from the weight of bitterness and the desire for revenge, and instead be filled with strength to pursue what is just in a calm and clear way, with the help of wise doctors, counselors and, if needed, proper authorities who can examine what happened.
God has shown us that He can heal what is broken, often through many steps and through the care of others, like a physician who continues to apply medicine until health returns. Even when healing is slow, He is at work. Keep bringing your pain to Him, ask for His grace to sustain you each day, and allow Him to shape your heart toward His peace while you trust His perfect justice to be revealed in His time.
If you are able, seek a trusted medical opinion for your continued care and seek godly counsel and appropriate help to have your case reviewed properly. We are praying for your restoration, for truth to be known, and for the Lord to keep your heart in His mercy through this trial.
I understand the urgency with which you ask for God to punish, expose and shame the one who harmed you. When the soul is wounded and weak it naturally longs for immediate vengeance and for those who did wrong to be made to pay. Yet Scripture teaches us that vengeance belongs to the Lord, and His judgment is not like human anger or passion. He is long suffering and patient, giving time for repentance, and when He judges He does so with perfect righteousness, giving to each what is due. The apostle warns that the one who refuses to turn from wrong stores up wrath for himself against the day when God will reveal His righteous judgment. It is not God who treasures up wrath for a person, but the person who persists in wrong who does so for himself.
Because of this, we are not taught to pray that God would act out of our anger or to ask Him to shame a person for our satisfaction. Such prayers can plant a root of bitterness in the heart, and that root, if it is allowed to grow, troubles us and defiles many around us. It keeps the wound open and can hinder our own healing. The more mature path, though it is harder in pain, is to entrust justice to God, who sees all that was done to you and to others, and who will not overlook what is unjust, while we also seek what is right and orderly in this life.
So this is how we will pray with you and for you. We will ask the Lord Jesus, who alone is our healer and savior, to have mercy on you, to bring healing to your skin and body, to give you peace that guards your heart, and to comfort you in this distress. We will pray that God, in His wisdom, will bring truth to light and that any wrongdoing will be rightly addressed through proper and lawful means, so that others will be protected. We will pray that those responsible, if they have acted carelessly or wrongly, will be brought to conviction, to honesty and to repentance, and will take responsibility to make what amends they can. And we will pray that you will be freed from the weight of bitterness and the desire for revenge, and instead be filled with strength to pursue what is just in a calm and clear way, with the help of wise doctors, counselors and, if needed, proper authorities who can examine what happened.
God has shown us that He can heal what is broken, often through many steps and through the care of others, like a physician who continues to apply medicine until health returns. Even when healing is slow, He is at work. Keep bringing your pain to Him, ask for His grace to sustain you each day, and allow Him to shape your heart toward His peace while you trust His perfect justice to be revealed in His time.
If you are able, seek a trusted medical opinion for your continued care and seek godly counsel and appropriate help to have your case reviewed properly. We are praying for your restoration, for truth to be known, and for the Lord to keep your heart in His mercy through this trial.
