What we can learn from a cheating man and his angry wife

Back in 2006, Emily had had enough. Her husband had been cheating on her and she decided to do something about it, so she paid to have a short note plastered on a billboard in a highly trafficked area of New York City. It read:

“Hi, Steven. Do I have your attention now? I know all about her, you dirty, sneaky, immoral, unfaithful, poorly endowed slimeball. Everything’s caught on tape. Your (soon-to-be-ex) Wife, Emily.”

Then, in a calculated tirade, she videoed herself throwing all of his belongings out of their home and posted it on YouTube. It quickly went viral and still to this day is in the top 20 most linked videos of all time on YouTube.

As word of Emily’s revenge spread around the social universe, it didn’t take long for people to realize that it wasn’t true. Once pictures of the same billboard starting showing up in LA, Chicago and other larger cities, people started digging and uncovered that the billboards and the video were just the PR campaign for a show on Tru TV.

Emily and her cheating husband, Steven, were fake.

But the emotions behind it weren’t, and that’s why it went viral.  Even if Emily wasn’t real, there were a whole lot of real women who were fantasizing about taking out a billboard just like that one, only with a couple of different names.  I’m sure some husbands would have paid for one, too.

That billboard campaign was popular for the same reason why ABC’s show, Revenge, is the most popular show on the network since Lost.  All of us – no matter how much we may try to mask it – want revenge when we’ve been wronged.

All of us, of course, except the best man who ever walked the planet.

I’ve thought a lot about that today because I’m reading the gospels again and I’m finding that Jesus didn’t seek revenge like we do. In fact, Mark writes that when Jesus was falsely accused, He said nothing.

Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, “Are you not going to answer?  What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?”  But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. (Mark 14:60-61)

When confronted by people spreading lies about Him, Jesus didn’t petition, lobby, beg or blame. He didn’t chisel out a billboard message about the jerks pointing fingers. He said nothing.

Think for just a minute about how much confidence it takes to say nothing in the face of lies.  Shoot, most times I can’t even stay silent in the face of truth!  Call me ugly and we’ll fight (of course, you’d be right, but I wouldn’t be silent!)!  Jesus didn’t feel the need to defend Himself because He knew who He was, He knew He was in the hands of God, and He knew that God would take care of Him.

Now, I’d like to tell you that you can just snap your fingers and “be like Jesus,” but we both know that isn’t how it works.  It’s about reminding ourselves over and over again that we are in the hands of a God who protects the wronged and punishes the wrong-er. In fact, the truth about how you and I may have been wronged will pop up at all kinds of odd times and that gives us an opportunity to remember that God is not looking the other way and that He will vindicate what we can’t.

Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (Romans 12:19)

Let me help you grab the power of that verse with a quick personal story.  A few years back when I was doing some freelance work, I had the opportunity to work with a partner on a client’s web marketing strategy.  Since I was doing the bulk of the work, the agreement was that I’d get the bulk of the monthly fee, which worked out nicely since my kids like to eat.  Fast forward a year or so and I was out around $3k because the partner never sent me all that I was owed.

That’ll buy a lot of food for a family, and it pissed me off.  Bad enough that using the phrase “made me angry” in that previous sentence wouldn’t have done justice to how I felt.  Suffice it to say that over the next year or so every time I tried to collect, I got madder.

I had been wronged, and unlike Jesus, I didn’t want to be silent.  I wanted to let everyone know what a jerk this “Christian” was.  I was so mad that I used quotes to describe that man’s faith even though he probably really does love Jesus.  I wanted to secretly sneak over to his house in the middle of the night and install big neon letters that blinked the word “thief” over his house.

“Hi, I’m Emily.”

The point of that story is that I finally realized that I wasn’t God.  I can’t really punish that man for what he did to me because I’ve done things, too.  I’ve made promises that I broke and said things that hurt people who never deserved it.

“Hi, I’m Steven.”

That’s when I wrote that man a letter and forgave him for what he’d done.  And I’ve been free ever since! Well, except for this week when a deer hit my car and I thought again about how much I could use that money.  But outside of those deer-hitting-my-car moments, choosing to take the billboard down and putting myself, my hurt and the person who caused it into the hands of God has been the best decision I could have ever made.

After all, forgiveness will always be more about us than the people we forgive.

We’ll save a lot on marketing, too.

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