I grew up with a scruffy but loveable dog named Toby. We had him for 15 years, and he was an important member of my childhood family.
Then when Nate and I were newlyweds, we adopted little Baron and loved him like a baby.
Other dogs have come and gone through the years, but when we bought a 4 week old Golden Retriever named Penny, we figured we had our long-term family dog.
In her 3rd year, however, something snapped inside her. It happened on a day when Nate and I had taken her to the beach, her favorite fetching place. While he walked the shoreline, I threw a stick for Penny, who never tired of retrieving.
After 30 minutes, I leaned over to attach her leash as I’d done many times before, but this time she looked up at me, unexpectedly bared her teeth, and in a full blown attack clamped down on my hand, biting all the way through.
“Penny!” I shouted. “Stop! It’s me!” She and I had spent most days together, and I’d been the one who fed her, played fetch in the yard every morning after carpooling, and loved her wholeheartedly. But she was in a blind rage and didn’t know me. Intent on her attack, she released my hand and bit me again and again, moving up my arm toward my throat.
She pulled me to the sand, shaking me like a hunting dog shakes a rabbit, and I felt myself being dragged to the water. I remembered that if a dog ever attacked, the thing to do was jab your fingers in its eyes and it would quit. But Penny had been my friend, and there was no way I could do that. Thankfully, Nate came running back from his walk just then, shouting and waving his arms. Penny let go of me and ran, her strange attack over.
Once in a while we hear about people raging in a way much like Penny did, turning in unexplained fury on those they supposedly love. It’s impossible to understand and gives rise to anger within us when we think of the innocents they’ve harmed, especially if they are children. Our instinct is to want them to suffer exactly as they’ve made others suffer, which sounds fair. But God tells us vengeful thinking isn’t right.
Incredibly he says, “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling.” (1 Peter 3:9) Instead “be transformed by the renewal of your mind…” (Romans 12:2) He’s saying, “Let me give you a radically different way to think.” But of course we aren’t able to push away thoughts of pay-back without his supernatural power flowing through us.
He’s willing to give us that, though, if we’re willing to receive it. But vengeance must be left to him, he says, and in the end he’ll see to it that perfect justice will be done.
“When Jesus was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.” (1 Peter 2:23)