“Stan,” I said, “do you remember I asked you to pray about a situation at work last week?”
“Sure do,” Stan replied. “I’ve been praying. Has anything happened?”
“Yeah,” I said, “something definitely happened. After my boss accused me of doing something I didn’t do, she spent some more time looking into the situation, She came into my office yesterday and apologized. She said she was wrong.”
“Great!” Stan replied. “So everything is resolved?”
“Seems like it,” I said. “And what’s really interesting to me is something my boss said when she apologized.”
“What’s that?” Stan asked.
“She said that she was really affected by my sincerity when I told her she must have gotten some bad information about what I had supposedly done.”
Continuing, I said, “She told me she went back to her office and spent some time thinking about my denial and that maybe she had gone off in the wrong direction. She dug more deeply and realized her error.”
“So,” Stan replied, “you think how you handled her accusation had something to do with how it was resolved?”
“I do,” I said.
“That’s kind of like what it says in the Book of Proverbs,” Stan responded.
“How so?” I asked.
“Proverbs puts it in terms of an ‘unjust curse,’ but I think it covered your situation of being unjustly accused. The verse goes on to say that such an unjust accusation will not stick.”
Continuing, he added, “While the verse doesn’t say anything about how the unjust accusation is handled, I think it’s fairly obvious that the reaction of the one unjustly accused certainly can go a long way toward the situation being straightened out. Just like it did with you.”
“Kind of like Queen Gertrude in Shakespeare’s Hamlet,” I replied.
“You’re right,” Stan responded, “when she said, ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’!”
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Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, a curse without cause does not alight. Proverbs 26:2.
Prayer: Thank you, Father, for your instructions as to how I am respond when unjustly accused. You sent your Son into the world for our salvation. He was certainly unjustly accused and treated poorly by the ones He came to save. Please help me in manifesting His response to whatever the world may throw at me in terms of unjust accusations. May my response align with His when He asked you to forgive them for they didn’t know what they were doing. Thank you I can and do bring these prayers before you in His name. Amen.
Think on this: Have you ever been accused of doing something you know you didn’t do? If so, how did you react? How did it turn out? Do you think your response was pleasing to God and in accordance with His will? Why or why not? Were you able to forgive the person who made the unjust accusation? If not, why? It’s not easy to echo Jesus’s words, “Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34), but that’s the target. Do you agree with that? Why or why not?
Waiting for the Train 