My mother would never allow her children to say, “I hate you!” No matter how heated the argument (and with five kids, there were plenty of quarrels), she would remind us that hatred means a desire for death. “Do you really want (brother/sister) to die?” No, of course not. Our heads would hang, and we’d (eventually) make up.
Mom’s definition wasn’t far off the one The Advanced English Dictionary gives for hatred: The emotion of intense dislike; a feeling of dislike so strong that it demands action.
Trevor Hiebert, the hero in Redemption’s Whisper, harbors hatred toward a former foster father and has vowed to exact revenge. His hatred is understandable, but it blinds him and hurts those close to him.
The Bible tells us in 1 John 2:11, “But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” That describes Trevor so well.
It also describes me.
I know what it feels like to hate, to wish death upon someone I knew. When I discovered that the father of a two-year-old girl I loved dearly had sexually traumatized her and her equally cherished siblings, my vision went dark and my heart turned to hatred. I wanted this “pillar of the church” to pay. I wished all the evil he’d committed would turn on him and destroy him.
Like Trevor, I could not forgive the culprit on my own. In fact, the only way I could forgive was to step back, admit my inability, and release him—and my anger—to the God who knows. Only He can move a heart to repentance.
Only He could change my heart to the point where I can pray for that man, not for punishment but for healing of the wounds that provoked him to harm innocents. It’s a prayer I have to repeat each time I think of him. May God have mercy on us both.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9)
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for Your redeeming grace.
Mom’s definition wasn’t far off the one The Advanced English Dictionary gives for hatred: The emotion of intense dislike; a feeling of dislike so strong that it demands action.
Trevor Hiebert, the hero in Redemption’s Whisper, harbors hatred toward a former foster father and has vowed to exact revenge. His hatred is understandable, but it blinds him and hurts those close to him.
The Bible tells us in 1 John 2:11, “But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” That describes Trevor so well.
It also describes me.
I know what it feels like to hate, to wish death upon someone I knew. When I discovered that the father of a two-year-old girl I loved dearly had sexually traumatized her and her equally cherished siblings, my vision went dark and my heart turned to hatred. I wanted this “pillar of the church” to pay. I wished all the evil he’d committed would turn on him and destroy him.
Like Trevor, I could not forgive the culprit on my own. In fact, the only way I could forgive was to step back, admit my inability, and release him—and my anger—to the God who knows. Only He can move a heart to repentance.
Only He could change my heart to the point where I can pray for that man, not for punishment but for healing of the wounds that provoked him to harm innocents. It’s a prayer I have to repeat each time I think of him. May God have mercy on us both.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9)
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for Your redeeming grace.
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