Tag Archives: abuse

A Victim Mentality

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Genesis 41:46-57

Joseph was a victim. If anyone had reason to pity himself it was Joseph. He had been hurt by his brothers, lied about, treated unfairly These are facts, not just his perception. Joseph was a victim of difficult circumstances.

Yet, we don’t see him expressing a victim mentality. I don’t think he would identify himself as a victim because of what we read in these verses. Joseph went about serving God no matter what the circumstances. He was kind, respectful, hard working, and humble as he did the work God placed in front of him. He didn’t have time for a pity party.

Does it seem everyone is a “victim” these days? There are well-meaning therapists that tell us that is ok. Instead of giving the “victim” the tools to change, they tell him or her how to get everyone else to change toward them. What is passed off as empathy is actually toxic empathy because it just makes the problem worse than it needs to be.

The fact is, we live in a fallen world. Bad things happen. Imperfect people do and say imperfect things. You can’t control them no matter how many fits you throw. You can only control how you receive their imperfections.

A Christian does or says something hurtful so the conclusion is all Christians are bad, and the answer is to leave the church.

People destroy cars because someone’s political view is offensive to them.

You can be taken to court if you hurt their feeling by “misgendering” them or not using their preferred pronouns.

Scroll through social media and see the tantrums people throw while sitting in their car with the cellphone pointed at their faces. It’s ridiculous.

These are extreme examples of a victim mentality, but that mentality is seen in our every day walk of life, too. Someone is always moaning about something. I bet you can name a few in your circle of friends who are living a victim mentality.

Like I said, we live in a fallen world among imperfect people. If you rub shoulders with others, you will be offended, get your feelings hurt, disagree, and/or be angry with someone along the way. You can’t avoid it. In fact, I think you should expect it and prepare for it.

But the Bible lays out instructions for how to handle the offense. First, go to that person privately and try to work it out. Now listen, you don’t go to them and demand they apologize. You go to them to tell them what you see as the problem AND TO LISTEN to what they are seeing and feeling. Your problem might end right there with either they taking responsibility and apologizing, or you realizing you are the problem and apologizing to them. Maybe you’ll find out there really is no problem at all. Wouldn’t that be great?

But not all conflicts are solved that easily. So the Bible says the next step is to go back to the person and bring a friend. Again, the purpose is to tell and listen, to attempt to come to a compromise and reconcile. Your friend is there to keep you both focused and accountable for your words.

If that doesn’t work, involve the church. Ask mature Christians in leadership who can mediate your conflict using Scripture.

At any point in the process you and the person you are having issues with might humble yourselves and resolve the conflict. But if that’s not possible because you or the other person refuse to budge, separation is called for.

It’s a process that takes work, intentionality, humility, and a willingness to listen and to be accountable for your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. And it takes a willingness to compromise. Sadly, most of us are too stubborn or too lazy to make it happen.

We’d rather play the victim card and believe life is unfair, people are cruel, and I deserve better. So we make everyone pay.

We ought to learn from Joseph how to handle injustices inflicted upon us. We can either focus on the hurt, or focus on the Lord. We can let the hurt paralyze us, or we can get busy being obedient, not letting resentment take hold.

We can stay a victim. Or not. We are going to find out, in the next few chapters in Genesis, that Joseph did not stay a victim. And the outcome will be a touching reconciliation between him and the very ones who once victimized him.

It’s an outcome I pray for all of us who have been hurt.

No Excuse (Joshua 8-9)

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It’s devastating to see the lengths to which jealousy can take a person. Abimelech may not have been treated equally to his brothers. His mother was a slave. Maybe the seventy sons of Gideon’s legal wives bullied their half-brother. Maybe Gideon himself showed favoritism toward his legitimate sons. It’s possible Gideon’s seventy sons lived in luxury while Abimelech lived like a slave. We don’t know the details. But after Papa Gideon died, Abimelech showed his true colors.

He convinced the citizens of Shechem to make him ruler. Then his first order of business was to publicly execute his seventy brothers. I wonder if Abimelech felt vindicated after that, or if killing his brothers brought him a sense of peace. Let’s just say, I doubt it.

I wonder if any of us reading this today are harboring ill feelings about the way we were raised, the way we were treated by our middle school classmates, the fact we were overlooked for a promotion at work, or that our neighbor’s kid is captain of the football team, and ours is last chair saxophone in the high school band.

What do we do with those feeling of inequity, or jealousy, or resentment? Do we feed them? Grow them? Use them throughout the day to justify a bad temper or depression?

I’m projecting because the Bible doesn’t tell us Abimelech’s motivation behind the murder of his brothers. But common sense tells us he didn’t act the way he did out of love, or from a place of forgiveness.

There isn’t one of us reading this who hasn’t been mistreated or treated unfairly, who hasn’t been bullied or been made to feel inferior some time in our lives. Yet some of us still feel the anger, resentment, and jealousy years later. Some of us let our past justify our present, which causes even more ill feelings. Which can lead to destructive behavior.

The Apostle Paul knew what it was like to be mistreated. He knew what it was like to be homeless, penniless, hated and physically abused. Maybe in some people’s minds, he had a right to get even, or to feel anger or jealousy toward his abusers. But hear what Paul had to say about it all:

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 8-9)

Paul didn’t have time for a pity party. He didn’t feel the need to get even. In fact, he called his abuse “treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God, and not from us.” (verse 7)

Your past may have been truly awful. Some people imagine childhood abuse, you may have really lived it. People may actually treat you unfairly, actually do mean things to you. But none of that is an excuse for you inflicting harm on anyone else, even those guilty of hurting you.

In fact, none of us has an excuse for hurting others. Not with the words we say or the things we do. And holding on to jealousy or anger or bitterness is only hurting you. You do that to you.

We who know Jesus can, with Paul, look at the inequities of our lives and say confidently that we are not crushed, not in despair, not abandoned, or destroyed. Why? Because we have the Spirit of God living in us, and He is none of those things. In fact, the Spirit brings love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control with Him.

The Bible tells us that “all things work together for good” for those of us who love God. Do you believe that? I believe with all my heart that the good God brings out of our difficult circumstances is Himself. And we as His children have the privilege of revealing His “all-surpassing power” when we love instead of hate, when we do good to those who harm us, when we forgive as we have been forgiven.

Those of us who have the Spirit of God living in us have no excuse to do otherwise.