He was abused and punished,
but he didn’t open his mouth.
Isaiah 53:7
Y ou’ve been misunderstood. Slammed. Lied about. Something is going around and it isn’t true. Your choice? Vindication. “I have to explain myself. I have to get them to understand,” you say to yourself, and so off you go to fix things, manage the situation, get people to understand. And suddenly God slips from the throne of your life and up you crawl to take your rightful place.
Screech. “Stop this ride, I wanna get off!” It’s time to take a lesson from Jesus and get back on track. Listen, he wasn’t in the habit of explaining everything when he was walking on earth. Almost unimaginably, he left misunderstandings to correct themselves—or better said, he left it to God to work things out in the lives of the people who misunderstood him, lied about him, or generally hated him. Isn’t his example good enough for you? Or are you willing to imitate the perfect one?
Sure, it won’t be easy, but godliness rarely is. As long as you are looking for vindication in the eyes of other human beings, you are going to be completely distracted from God. And that distraction will affect your heart, your mind, and your body. Get your focus off the world and onto God. What people think or say has no bearing on eternity. Don’t give them more power over you than they deserve, but choose to make your investment in the eternal and let the King work out the temporary for himself.