Burroughs on Being Wronged

C.S. Lewis wrote "to love at all is to be vulnerable." We could just as easily say, "to live at all is to be wronged by others." Family, friends, and foes alike wrong us and hurt us. As Christians, we know we cannot respond in kind. So how should we respond when people wrong us?

Puritan pastor Jeremiah Burroughs (1600-1646) helps us in our thinking here. The following excerpt comes from Burroughs' masterpiece, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. 

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If this is your trouble that men do so wrong you, you ought rather to turn your hearts to pity them, than to murmur or be discontented. For the truth is, if you are wronged by other men, you have the better of it, for it is better to bear wrong than to do wrong a great deal. If they wrong you, you are in a better condition than they, because it is better to bear, than to do wrong. I remember it is said of Socrates that, as he was very patient when wrong was done to him, they asked him how he came to be so. He said, 'If I meet a man in the street who is a diseased man, shall I be vexed and fretted with him because he is diseased? Those who wrong me I look upon as diseased men, and therefore pity them.'

Though you meet with hard dealings from men, yet you meet with nothing but kind, good and righteous dealings from God. When you meet with unrighteous dealings from them, set one against the other.

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You can purchase a copy of The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment here.