Daily Prayer: When Someone Does You Wrong and You Want to Do It Right Back
Daily Prayer: When Someone Does You Wrong and You Want to Do It Right Back
"Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else."
— 1 Thessalonians 5:15
Here's the thing nobody tells you about summer Mondays: they carry all the weight of a regular Monday but with the added bonus of weekend grudges that haven't quite cooled off yet.
Maybe it was something said at the family cookout. Maybe it was a coworker who took credit for your idea before the holiday weekend started. Maybe it was your adult child — the one you love fiercely and also occasionally want to hand a bill for eighteen years of raising them — who said something that landed sideways and you've been turning it over in your mind ever since.
Whatever it was, you walked into this week carrying it. And now here's Paul, cheerfully dropping this verse like it's easy.
The Part We Skip Over
We like to quote the second half of this verse. Do good for each other. Yes. Amen. Lovely. Put it on a coffee mug.
But Paul starts with the harder thing: nobody pays back wrong for wrong.
That word "nobody" is doing a lot of work. It doesn't say "most people" or "people who are spiritually mature enough." It says nobody. Which means it includes me on a summer Monday when I'm tired and a little bit petty and completely justified — at least in my own head.
Because let's be honest. The human brain is remarkably creative when it comes to justifying payback. We don't even call it payback. We call it "setting the record straight." We call it "not letting people walk all over us." We call it "just being honest."
We are very good at this.
What It Actually Looks Like in Real Life
I'm a working, married mom with a full calendar and a low tolerance for nonsense by Wednesday. I love people genuinely, but I also keep a fairly accurate internal ledger of who has done what to whom.
It's not something I'm proud of. It's just something I'm being honest about.
And the thing is, when someone wrongs you — at work, in your marriage, with your adult kid who should know better by now — the pull toward payback isn't always dramatic. It's not always explosive.
Sometimes it's just a cold shoulder. A sigh timed perfectly. An email reply that is technically polite and emotionally arctic. A dinner that is fine. Just fine.
That's the version of "wrong for wrong" I have to watch in myself. The quiet, deniable kind.
The Word "Strive" Is Doing Me a Favor
I noticed something in this verse that actually made me feel better about myself, which doesn't happen often on a Monday.
Paul doesn't say always do what is good. He says always strive to do what is good.
Strive means effort. It means it won't always come naturally. It means you might have to push against something in yourself to get there. It means God already knows this is hard and built the word "try" right into the instruction.
That's not a loophole. That's grace with legs on it.
It means I don't have to feel the warm fuzzy feelings first. I just have to keep moving toward good, even when I'm dragging my feet a little.
The Part About "Everyone Else"
Paul widens the circle at the end of the verse. Not just for each other — meaning people in your church, your family, your comfortable inner circle — but for everyone else too.
The coworker who took credit. The neighbor who still hasn't returned what they borrowed. The stranger in the parking lot who got the last shaded spot in July heat.
Everyone else is a big ask on a summer Monday.
But I think that's exactly why Paul put it there. Because doing good for the people we love is the baseline. The real stretch is doing good for the people who have, frankly, earned a cold shoulder.
That's where character actually lives. Not in the easy moments. In the ones where you choose differently than your instincts told you to.
A Practical Thing I'm Taking Into This Week
I'm not going to pretend I've mastered this. I'm going to tell you what I'm actually doing instead.
This week, when I feel the pull toward payback — even the small, civilized, totally-deniable kind — I'm going to pause long enough to ask one question: What would doing good actually look like here?
Not what would feel satisfying. Not what would be justified. What would be good.
Sometimes those answers overlap. Often they don't.
But at least I'll be asking. And I think that's where the striving starts.
A Prayer for Today
God, I'll be honest — there are a few people on my mind this morning that I'm not feeling particularly generous toward. You already know who they are. You probably also know I've been a little smug about being the one who was wronged, which means I've already lost some of the moral high ground I thought I was standing on.
Help me today. Not to feel good about people I'm annoyed with — that might be a bigger ask than I can make right now. But help me to do good anyway. Help me to strive even when I'm not feeling it. Help me to keep my hands open instead of clenched.
And if there's something I need to own about my part in any of this, give me the courage not to look away from it.
I want to be the kind of person this verse describes. I'm just not there yet today. Walk with me anyway.
Amen.
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