One of the advantages to growing older is we get to look back on our lives and see the many influences we have been exposed to and affected by. These can be both positive and negative.
For many, the easiest thing to do is focus on the negative.
I believe it is easier simply because it allows us to ruminate on our past from a perspective on how much better life could have been had I not been exposed to this situation or that person.
Though there may be truth to this consideration, the reality is we have a choice to make regarding our past. We can choose to learn from it and move forward, or we can choose to allow it to dominate our thinking and affect both our present and our future.
The choice is always ours.
If we are honest, one reason we fixate on those who caused us pain or strife is to find a way to get them back for what has been done to us. This can eat us alive and if we are not careful, can ultimately do more harm in our lives than in the lives of those in which we seek to impose our vengeance.
For many, this is irrelevant because they have given into a “vengeance is mine” attitude” and their focus is on finding a way to exact payment from the perpetrator even after these people are long gone.
I often wonder why the desire to seek retribution from someone who may have caused harm many years ago matters so much to so many. Especially when the truth is, these people from our past most likely do not even know we are alive today.
I believe the answer is the power of the mindset “vengeance is mine”. It is here that we see this as an issue of pride and ego rather than an issue of self-improvement.
Was it right for others to have mistreated us in our past? Of course not, but to give these same people the power to affect our present and our futures is a choice we make.
There is freedom in understanding, vengeance is not mine and I do not need to seek it. Here is where our own personal growth should be our primary concern, not the desire to see others pay for their past sins.
In the end, our lives are ours to use as we see fit. As is, our desire to seek vengeance. But, to live our best lives, we need to desire to be better than those who may have hurt us, not just like them.
“Vengeance is mine” may be the cry of your heart today, but the question is to what extent and to whose demise?
Deuteronomy 32:35, “Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.”
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