Friday, June 8, 2012

An Eye for an Eye

Today I read Leviticus 24 where a blasphemer is put to death and the Lord gives Moses that most famous of phrases, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  Human nature is all about fairness.  Children, without ever being taught the concept will utter the phrase, "That's not fair".  And they are right, a lot of what happens to us in life is unfair from a fairness perspective.

It is part of the natural man to want what other people want and to have it be equal.  But we adults all know that the world doesn't work that way.  The world will hand you whatever it wants to.  Heavenly Father will give you what you need in order to progress, this means trials.  We grow the most from our trials and tribulations.  Just like a bird needs the experience of coming out of the egg to strengthen it, just like a butterfly uses emerging from the cocoon to fill out its wings, if we did not have trials, we would never grow and progress into something better.

But the reason this law of an eye for an eye appeals to mankind is because it is all about fairness.  We want revenge on those who have wronged us.  When someone hits us, the natural man's response is to hit back.  And to be told that God justifies it and gives us permission to hit back?  Oh what a wonderful thing that was to hear.  And then Jesus came and changed it.  He told us to turn the other cheek.  That the higher law is NOT to hit back.  Now, God told the Nephites that they were justified in hitting back if they were not guilty of the first offense, but it was better to not retaliate at all.  That is hard to do.  It can be really hard when we have been unjustly hurt.  However, like we just said, if we learn to do it, we will be more Christlike.  And that is our goal.  Until tomorrow.

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