Be the nail and not the hammer - Devotion on Matthew 5:11-12

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. -Matthew 5:11-12

I was just thinking about this verse because the other night, I was talking with a lady who was trying really hard to get me to gossip and complain.  Have you ever been in that situation?  It's uncomfortable to say the least.  It's hard not to fall into that trap - you know, the dig up the dirt mode.  Human nature makes you want to be superior, which makes you want to gossip and complain.  It's a pride thing.  So, this woman was complaining about a couple of people who had done something wrong to her.  She was also trying to compare her situation to something that had been going on in my life.  I told her that I had prayed a lot about the situation and had prayed not to be bitter and the Lord worked on me.  I related a story about when my mother in law was living with us before she died - let's just say that she really didn't like me too much.  She was closing in on 80 and she had many health problems and my husband had been taking care of her for many years, and then, all of a sudden, he had a social life and a wife.  She didn't handle it very well.  She was often mean to me.  There were times that I would just walk out of the house and take an hour long walk to pray because she would get me so angry.  Then, one day on the way to work, I heard a radio preacher say that too often, Christians want to be the hammer and not the nail.  What a difference that made in how I handled the situation.  That brought me to this verse.   I know that this is more about religious persecution, but if these men were supposed to rejoice in what they were going through, certainly I should be able to rejoice in what I was going through.  Not only was I to be the nail, I was supposed to rejoice and be glad.  The more I prayed about it, and prayed for my mother in law, the more I realized that I was in the midst of God's will for my life and at least I could rejoice in that.  Every time my mother in law said something mean, it really didn't bother me anymore.  It's a neat thing when you can endure things, just by knowing that you're in the center of God's will, and endure them happily.  My nature is to fight back, but God is supernatural.  He tempers me and molds me into the person that He wants me to be, if only I will be the nail and not the hammer.