Christians are good at a lot of things, but admitting our deepest, most honest emotions is not one of them. We’re so quick to jump straight to “forgive and forget” when someone has wronged us or caused unjustifiable pain to someone we love. “Love one another” is our theme—and so it should be—but sometimes the hurts are too deep for such a simplistic band-aid approach. Sometimes the journey to genuine healing, love, forgiveness, and reconciliation leads necessarily through the valley of vengeance.

God’s Word speaks to the very human emotion of desiring revenge in the Psalms. In the introduction to his Commentary on the Psalms, John Calvin suggests that this scriptural hymnbook reflects an “anatomy of all parts of the soul.” Calvin compared the Psalms to a mirror reflecting all the emotions human beings have been created to consciously experience. Whether we like how we look in this part of the mirror of scripture or not, the Psalms are undeniably full of prayers and expressions of desires for revenge.

Consider the psalmist’s rant of rage and cries for vengeance in Psalm 109:1-20:

“O God, whom I praise, do not remain silent, for wicked and deceitful men have opened their mouths against me . . . in return for friendship, they accuse me . . . appoint an evil man to oppose him . . . let him be found guilty . . . may his days be few . . . may his children be fatherless . . . may a creditor seize all he has . . . may no one extend kindness to him . . . may this be the Lord’s payment to my accusers, to those who speak evil of me.”

Even the beautiful portrait of the intimate, personal nature of God’s intricate design and knowledge of our individual lives in Psalm 139 includes a violent cry for revenge in verses 19-22:

“If only you would slay the wicked, O God! . . . Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord . . . I count them my enemies.”

Could passages such as these (and others) be included in holy scripture because they are an undeniable part of how God “created [our] inmost being” and “knit [us] together in [our] mother’s womb[s]”? All scripture is “God-breathed and profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16), so what can we learn from these difficult verses?

Theologian Walter Brueggemann in his book Praying the Psalms suggests that lives of faith consist of moving with God through repeated cycles of

1. being securely oriented
2. being painfully disoriented
3. being surprisingly reoriented

The Psalms, Brueggemann argues, provide honest language for addressing these life passages common to all human experience. If Brueggemann’s assessment is correct, perhaps the Psalms of vengeance are an important part of the “reorientation” process in the life of a believer. Admitting our honest, deep-seeded desire for vengeance against those who have hurt us or our loved ones may be the starting point for thorough, complete healing.

Let’s consider Psalm 109 again. Notice first that the psalmist’s revenge-seeking address is to the Lord in prayer. By starting his rant with “O God,” he acknowledges from the beginning that God is the one who should decide the proper punishment for his enemies; he doesn’t take matters into his own hands, but rather takes his emotions directly to the Lord in prayer. After purging his soul by confessing how he, in his humanness, would handle the situation, he submits in the subsequent verses to God’s will:

“But you, O Sovereign Lord, deal well with me for your name’s sake; out of the goodness of your love, deliver me. For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me . . . help me, O Lord my God; save me in accordance with your love . . .with my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord . . . for he stands at the right hand of the needy one to save his life from those who condemn him.” (Psalm 109: 21, 26, 30-31)

 In Psalm 139, after praying for God to slay the wicked and confessing his hatred of his enemies, David humbly concludes with these words:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24)

Clearly as Christians we are not to take vengeance into our own hands. “For we know him who said, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay.’” (Hebrews 10:30.) In my own life I’m learning, though, that there is powerful healing in looking carefully in the mirror and admitting the honest, ugly desires and emotions that are there to the One who created both me and the emotions I feel. Confession truly is good for the soul (even if not so much for the ego.)

May God grant us the strength, humility, and faith necessary to face and acknowledge the desires “good Christians” don’t believe they should have. God knows what’s in our hearts anyway; why not confess what He already knows and be honest with ourselves? As we walk life’s road faithfully and honestly with our Heavenly Father, like Jesus we encounter opportunities to die to sin and self (“Not my will, but thine be done.” Luke 22:42.) Through the power of the Holy Spirit living in us, we will emerge on the other side of the valley of vengeance able to ascend to the heights of genuinely loving our enemies and blessing those who persecute us, just as Jesus calls us to do. (Matthew 5:43-45, 48; Romans 12:14, 19).   As tempting as it may be, though, we must not bypass the dark valley of vengeance. Often it is there that true healing begins.