Devotional: AVENGERS ASSEMBLE

I am very excited about the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron movie. I can’t wait to see them all back in action! As I have stated before, I am a big fan of Marvel comics and movies. However, this week’s blog is not about Iron Man, Captain America or Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch or even about the Avengers in general. Honestly, I think that that is something DC actually got right when they called their main team the Justice League. To me, being an “avenger” is very negative. It conjures up images of a need to be Rambo, a Roman gladiator-like Spartacus, a Mad Max.

I wish I was big and supernaturally strong and able to solve my problems by punching bad guys in the face or zapping them with Repulsor rays. But, lo and behold, our problems rarely come in the form of an evil alien named Loki or a crazy robot named Ultron. My enemies are usually jerks on the road or people who want to treat me unfairly in the corporate world. When I am confronted by these people, I have top look to the answer God has given us in His Word. I am not telling you not to defend yourself, but as a man of faith, we have a higher calling.

What I am talking about is avenging a wrong is the act of taking revenge and that is God’s business, not the business of people of Judeo-Christian values. It requires faith to allow God to have vengeance against our enemies. Again, we are not called to be doormats and being a pacifist is not being a doormat. We support those of Judeo-Christian backgrounds who are called to that (Quakers, Amish, etc…). However, when someone has done us wrong and they know that and they honestly do not care, they have already lost. When we have stopped loving our enemies, when our hearts are filled with hate, then WE have lost. We need to ask God for the strength to love our enemies as throughout the Bible, God’s people have been called to do.

However, all of those people are minor enemies compared to the one person who constantly gets in my way of being happy, getting things done, and being successful — myself. More often than not, we ourselves are our biggest enemy. It is in ourselves who see a situation a certain way and chose a reaction or response. The greatest success stories in history are people who have faced problems as conquering themselves and not conquering others. Stephen Covey ( a real man of value ) in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (p. 328) talks about Anwar Sadat’s time in prison as he described it in his autobiography. He realized that he was in the midst of a huge system in prison, but he would not allow himself to be overcome with hate, depression, and hopelessness. Think about others who have done the same: Victor Frankel, Martin Luther King, Jesus, the list could go on and on. They got out of their own way. They avenged themselves. Allow me to leave you a Native American prayer by Chief Yellow Lark / Chief Dan George:

Oh, Great Spirit,
 whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me.
I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.

Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes
ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
 Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be superior to my brother,
 but to fight my greatest enemy – myself.

Proverbs 24:29: Do not say, “I will do to him as he has done to me; I will pay the man back for what he has done.”

——————————–W.