Hurting People Hurt People
Ever have someone respond to you with gross overreaction? It’s as if you are a little lamb walking peacefully by, and this wolf suddenly jumps out in front of you and cuts you with its sharp tongue. You walk away bleeding emotionally, and they walk away unscathed by the incident.
These “wolves” have emotional pain that causes them to suspect wrong motives. They have become self-absorbed with themselves and their own pain, they are unaware they are hurting other people, or if aware, they don’t care.
Hurting people hurt people.
Galatians 15:5 tells us, “If you go on hurting each other and tearing each other apart, be careful, or you will completely destroy each other.”
Are you around someone who continually wounds you, but you find you keep putting yourself in a position to be wounded? Do we stay in the line of fire because we are so busy trying to please this “wolf”?
It becomes a cycle of madness. And guess who becomes the next wolf? Why? Because what we typically do next, unfortunately, is do the work of the enemy to ourselves. We re-play the words that wounded us, over and over, until we are not the lamb anymore and become a fellow wolf. We start developing a lens of pain in which every word and action filters through, and then we begin to look for the next little lamb who passes by.
How can we stop from becoming another “wolf”?
Adopt my new motto—Instead of Re-playing their hurtful words back, Be-praying for this wolf.
BE-Praying instead of RE-Playing
Next, understand the Bible tells us to make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. (Romans 14:19)
If you see you are starting to have wolf tendencies, know that you can be free! There is freedom in Christ! Jesus didn’t go to the cross and suffer a horrific death because of the accusing people or leaders of the law. No, Jesus went to the cross in obedience to the Father, who made a way to reconcile us to Himself and to one another. This freedom means your identity will be in Christ and not in what another broken person says you are. Resting in “Whose” you are is freeing and strengthening.
Choose to Soar by choosing to let God change your heart and change your pain filter to a filter of love.
Lord, change my heart, one that is responsive to your voice and reflects your love to others. Please help me to claim ownership of my new identity as a child of Yours and that I do not belong to the world or its ways. Lord, help me pray for others hurting, make every effort to do what leads them to peace and your freedom. In Jesus’ name, Amen.