God Says: Stay Quiet After Disrespect He Will Fight For You Powerful Faith Message| Lysa Terkeurst

Hey, I am so glad you are here today. I

mean that because I believe God did not let you stumble onto this video by accident. Nothing about where you are

accident. Nothing about where you are right now is an accident. Before we get into today's message, I need to ask you something. If this channel has ever

something. If this channel has ever spoken to your heart, if God has ever used these words to meet you in a hard season, would you take two seconds right

now and hit that subscribe button and ring that notification bell because every single week we are bringing you words straight from God's heart. And I

don't want you to miss a single one.

Also, if you know someone who is hurting right now, someone who has been disrespected dismissed betrayed or pushed aside, share this video with them

today. You might not know what to say to

today. You might not know what to say to them, but God does, and he might use this to say it. All right, let's go.

Today we are talking about one of the most difficult, most misunderstood and most powerful things a person of faith

can ever do. We are talking about what happens after someone disrespects you.

After someone embarrasses you, dismisses you, betrays your trust, speaks over you, speaks down to you, or treats you

like you simply do not matter.

We are talking about what God is calling you to do in that moment. And friend, it may surprise you. He is calling you to

be quiet.

Not because you were weak, not because you have nothing to say, not because what they did was okay, but because God has something to say,

and he cannot say it through you if you are too busy trying to say it yourself.

The wound has a name. Let's be honest with each other for a moment. And I mean really honest. Because I think sometimes

really honest. Because I think sometimes in Christian spaces, we rush too quickly past the pain to get to the lesson. We

skip the wound and jump straight to the worship. And while I believe in the

worship. And while I believe in the power of praise, oh, I believe it with everything in me. I also believe that

God is not afraid of our pain. He is not uncomfortable with our tears. He is not impatient with our confusion. He can

handle your honesty. So, let me ask you something and I want you to sit with it for a moment. Who did it?

Who disrespected you? Who treated you as though your feelings didn't count? Your

voice didn't matter? Your presence

didn't deserve basic dignity?

Was it someone at work who talked over you in a meeting like you weren't even in the room? Was it a family member who has made it their life's mission to

remind you of every mistake you've ever made? Was it a friend, someone you

made? Was it a friend, someone you trusted, someone you poured yourself into who turned around and said something about you that cut so deep you

still feel it? Was it a partner who made you feel small? A church leader who dismissed you? a parent whose words

dismissed you? a parent whose words still echo in your head 20 years later.

Whatever it was, whoever it was, that wound has a name. And I want you to know God knows that name, too. He heals the

brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Man Psalm 147:3.

He does not scroll past your pain. He

does not minimize what was done to you.

He does not tell you to just get over it and move on. The same God who created the entire universe, every star, every

ocean, every mountain, that God stops.

He bends down and he tends to your wound personally.

But here is what he also does, beloved.

He asks you to trust him with it. He

asks you, and I know this feels almost impossible sometimes, he asks you to bring your wounded heart to him before you bring it to social media.

Before you bring it to your group chat, before you bring it to the person who hurt you in the form of an explosive text message at 2 in the morning, he

asks you to be still, to be quiet, to let him be your defense.

Be still and know that I am God.

Mashemer, Psalm 46:10.

That word still in the original Hebrew, it means to cease striving, to let go, to release your grip. It is not passive.

It is one of the most active, most courageous, most spiritually disciplined things you will ever do. Choosing

silence after disrespect is not weakness. It is warfare. Spiritual

weakness. It is warfare. Spiritual

warfare. And God is asking you to let him fight. Why we want to react and why

him fight. Why we want to react and why God says wait. Now let's talk about why this is so hard. Because it is hard.

Let's not pretend it isn't. When someone

disrespects us, something primal wakes up inside us. And that something has a very loud voice. It says things like, "You cannot let them get away with that.

If you stay quiet, they'll think it was okay. You need to defend yourself.

okay. You need to defend yourself.

Nobody else is going to do it. Speak up.

Stand up. Strike back. And I want to be transparent with you. That voice is not always wrong about the feeling. The

feeling of wanting to be defended, to be seen, to have someone say what they did was not okay. That is a legitimate God-given desire for justice. But the

voice often lies about the timing. And

it almost always lies about the method.

Because reacting in the moment when your emotions are volcanic, when your pride is wounded, when your heart is raw, reacting in that moment almost never produces the outcome your soul is

actually longing for. Have you ever sent a message in anger and immediately wished you could unend it? Have you ever said something in a moment of hurt that did more damage to you than to them?

Have you ever clapped back so hard that you became the story and the actual wrong they did to you got buried under what you said in response? I have and I

think most of us have because here is the truth about reactive retaliation. It

gives the person who hurt you more power over you. When you react out of impulse,

over you. When you react out of impulse, you hand them the wheel. You let their actions dictate your behavior. You let

their darkness determine your direction.

But when you choose to be quiet, you take that power back. A person's wisdom yields patience. It is to one's glory to

yields patience. It is to one's glory to overlook an offense. Proverbs 19:11.

Did you catch that? The Bible calls it glory. Not weakness, not doormat

glory. Not weakness, not doormat behavior, not letting someone walk all over you. Glory. Because it takes

over you. Glory. Because it takes something extraordinary to hold your tongue when everything in you wants to speak.

It takes a woman or a man who has learn to anchor their identity not in what others say about them but in what God says about them. And that beloved is

where the real work begins.

See, most of us have spent years, sometimes our entire lives, building our sense of worth on the approval of other people, on whether they respected us,

valued us, chose us. So when someone disrespects us, it doesn't just feel like a social slight. It feels like an identity attack. It feels like a verdict

identity attack. It feels like a verdict on our value. And that is why we react so strongly. That is why we cannot just

so strongly. That is why we cannot just let it go. Because somewhere deep inside, we are not just defending ourselves. We are fighting for proof

ourselves. We are fighting for proof that we matter.

But friend, you do not need their respect to prove you matter. You already

matter. God settled that before you were born. Before I formed you in the womb, I

born. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set

knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart. Jeremiah 15. You were known.

you apart. Jeremiah 15. You were known.

You were chosen. You were set apart. Not

by a person who can be wrong about you, by the God who created you and cannot make a mistake. When you truly know that, when it lives in your bones and

not just in your head, you will find that you no longer need to fight for a dignity that was never yours to earn in the first place. You already have it,

and nothing, they say, can take it away.

what silence looks like practically, spiritually, and powerfully. Now, I want to get really practical with you because I know that be still can feel vague when you're in the middle of a storm. What

does it actually look like to stay quiet after disrespect? What does it mean in

after disrespect? What does it mean in real life, in real time, in real situations? Let me give you something

situations? Let me give you something concrete. Number one, staying quiet does

concrete. Number one, staying quiet does not mean pretending it didn't happen.

God is not asking you to perform a kind of spiritual amnesia where you smile and act like everything is fine when it is not fine. He is asking you to process

not fine. He is asking you to process your pain with him before you process it anywhere else. There is a difference

anywhere else. There is a difference between suppressing your emotion and surrendering it. Suppressing says I will

surrendering it. Suppressing says I will push this down, ignore it, act like it doesn't bother me. Surrendering says God I am furious right now. I am hurt. I am

shaking and I am bringing all of that to you because you are the only one who can truly handle it. Go to God first, not social media, not your best friend's

voicemail. God. Pour it all out before

voicemail. God. Pour it all out before him. Cry if you need to cry. Scream into

him. Cry if you need to cry. Scream into

a pillow if that's where you are. Write

it all in a journal and let it be ugly and honest and raw. and then listen for him.

Number two, staying quiet means resisting the urge to make them understand. This is one of the hardest

understand. This is one of the hardest ones because when we've been hurt, we desperately want the person who hurt us to understand what they did. We want

them to see it. We want them to feel it.

We want them to know. But beloved, and this is wisdom that took me a long time to learn, you cannot force someone to

see what they are not ready to see. You

cannot argue someone into having empathy they don't yet possess. You cannot

explain your way into their understanding. And when you exhaust

understanding. And when you exhaust yourself trying to make them get it, you end up more depleted, more frustrated, and often more hurt because they usually

still don't get it. And now you've given away your peace in the process.

Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil

with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing because to this you were called so that you may inherit a

blessing. May have 1 Peter 3:9 repay

blessing. May have 1 Peter 3:9 repay with blessing. Not because they deserve

with blessing. Not because they deserve it, but because you are called to it.

Because the blessing is actually for you. The peace, the freedom, the

you. The peace, the freedom, the inheritance. Those come to the one who

inheritance. Those come to the one who trusts God enough to let go. Number

three, staying quiet means letting God do what only God can do. I want to tell you something. I believe with every

you something. I believe with every fiber of my faith, God is the most just being in all of existence. He has never

once missed an act of cruelty. He has

never overlooked a single injustice. He

does not grade on a curve when it comes to how his children are treated. Every

word spoken against you, he heard it.

Every time you were dismissed, he saw it. Every door slammed in your face.

it. Every door slammed in your face.

every eye roll, every cutting remark designed to diminish you. God witnessed

every single one. And he is not neutral about it. Do not take revenge, my dear

about it. 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."

avenge. I will repay, says the Lord."

Romans 12:19, "Leave room for God's wrath." That is such a powerful phrase.

wrath." That is such a powerful phrase.

It means get out of the way. Stop

filling the space with your reaction because God needs room to move. When you

insist on handling it yourself, you crowd God out. When you step back and trust him, you give him space to work.

And beloved, when God moves on your behalf, he does it in ways you could never orchestrate on your own. He can

open doors that no amount of argument could open. He can change hearts that no

could open. He can change hearts that no amount of persuasion could change. He

can restore what was stolen in ways that make your head spin. But he often waits for your quiet trust before he moves with full power. The spiritual growth

hidden in the silence. I want to shift something for you now because I think sometimes we look at hard seasons, seasons of being disrespected,

overlooked, hurt, and we see them as interruptions to our growth, like God has allowed a detour that has set us

back. But what if the hard season is the

back. But what if the hard season is the growth? What if the disrespect you're

growth? What if the disrespect you're experiencing right now is not a sign that God has forgotten you, but a sign that he is doing something so

significant in you that he needs the fire to get hotter. What if this is your refining moment? Consider it pure joy,

refining moment? Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith

produces perseverance. Let perseverance

produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:24.

anything. James 1:24.

Pure joy. Now, I know that feels almost offensive when you're in pain. And I am not suggesting that you manufacture happiness about being hurt. That is

toxic positivity. And it is not what James is saying here. What he is saying is this. There is something on the other

is this. There is something on the other side of this trial that is so valuable, so complete, so transformative that when you get there, you will look back and

understand why it had to happen this way. The silence you choose in the

way. The silence you choose in the middle of your pain is building something in you that ease never could.

It is building patience, the kind that doesn't panic when things take longer than expected. It is building trust, the

than expected. It is building trust, the deep bone level conviction that God is working even when you cannot see it. It

is building self-control, the fruit of the spirit that will serve you for the rest of your life. It is building wisdom, the ability to see people and

situations with God's eyes, not just your own. None of that gets built in

your own. None of that gets built in comfort. All of it gets built in the

comfort. All of it gets built in the fire. And here is something else I want

fire. And here is something else I want to say to you. Something that I believe is deeply, profoundly true. The way you

handle disrespect tells you exactly who you are becoming. Not who you were, who you are becoming.

Because the person who can stay steady when they've been knocked down, the person who can pray for the one who hurt them even while the wound is still

fresh, the person who can hold their tongue and trust God even when every nerve in their body wants to explode.

That person is not ordinary.

That person is being shaped into something extraordinary.

That person carries the fingerprints of God all over their life.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my

weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." 2 Corinthians 12:9.

Perfect in weakness.

God's power made perfect. Not in your strength, not in your eloquence, not in your ability to construct the perfect

comeback, but in your weakness, in your silence, in your surrender. So the next time someone disrespects you and you

feel the heat of anger rising and you choose to be quiet, I want you to know in that moment you are not being passive.

You are being powerful in the only way that truly lasts.

What God is doing while you're being still. Let me paint a picture for you.

still. Let me paint a picture for you.

While you are choosing silence, while you are biting your tongue, turning to God in prayer, resisting the urge to

blow up, trusting that he sees what is God actually doing.

He is not sitting idally by. He is not watching from a distance with his arms crossed. He is not unaware of what just

crossed. He is not unaware of what just happened to you. He is working. He is

working on the person who hurt you.

Perhaps in ways you will never see this side of eternity. Conviction is quiet.

Growth is slow. But God moves in people.

He is working on your circumstances, preparing things on your behalf, shifting atmospheres, opening pathways that don't exist yet. He is working on

you specifically on the parts of you that this wound has exposed. Because

beloved, every wound reveals something.

It shows us where we still need to build trust in God. It shows us where our identity is still too dependent on human approval. It shows us where we are still

approval. It shows us where we are still trying to be our own God. And God in his mercy uses those wounds to heal us more

deeply than we even knew we needed. And

we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Man, know those Romans 8:28.

purpose. Man, know those Romans 8:28.

All things, not most things, not the convenient things, not the things that make sense to us. All things, the

disrespect, the betrayal, the dismissal, the rejection, the heartbreak, the disappointment, all of it, every ugly,

painful, confusing thing, God is weaving it into something good for the one who loves him and trusts his purpose. That

doesn't mean the pain isn't real. It

doesn't mean it wasn't wrong. It doesn't

mean you skip the grief. It means the grief is not the end of the story. Your

silence is not the final chapter. It is

the sacred space between what was done to you and what God is doing for you.

Hold that space. Protect that space. Do

not fill it with noise because God is in the quiet. He always has been. The Lord

the quiet. He always has been. The Lord

will fight for you. You need only to be still. Exodus 14:14.

still. Exodus 14:14.

You need only to be still. Not perfect,

not unafraid, not pretending everything is fine. Just

still, just trusting, just quiet enough to let God be God. Walking forward with confidence, not bitterness.

I want to talk to you about what comes after the silence. Because staying quiet is not meant to be a permanent state. It

is a posture, a posture of surrender to God. And from that posture, he will

God. And from that posture, he will eventually move you forward. And when he does, I want you to walk forward differently than you did before. Not

with an open wound that you carry everywhere you go. Not with a chip on your shoulder waiting for the next person to hurt you. Not with walls so

high that love can no longer reach you.

but with freedom, with grace, with the quiet, steady, unshakable confidence of a person who has been through something and come out knowing, absolutely knowing

that God did not abandon them. I want to say something about bitterness here because I think it is one of the greatest spiritual dangers that comes out of seasons of disrespect. Bitterness

is what happens when we nurse the wound instead of surrendering it. When we

replay the offense again and again, when we tell the story of what was done to us until it becomes the defining story of who we are. And I understand the pull.

When we've been truly wronged, bitterness can feel like the last form of justice available to us. It can feel like power. Like, at least if I'm

like power. Like, at least if I'm bitter, they know they hurt me. But

beloved, bitterness is not power.

Bitterness is a prison. And the terrible irony is that the person who hurt you, they are usually not even thinking about you. They have moved on. They are living

you. They have moved on. They are living their life while you are locked in a cell of your own unforgiveness. They are

walking free. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble

and defile many. Hebrews 12:15. A bitter

root grows slowly. It doesn't start as bitterness. It starts as pain that we

bitterness. It starts as pain that we don't bring to God. And if we leave it there unattended, it grows. It wraps

itself around our heart. And eventually,

it doesn't just affect us, it defiles the people around us, too. Our children,

our friendships, our future relationships, our calling. Bitterness

is never just personal. It spreads. So

the healing that God is offering you through this season of silence, it is not just for you. It is for everyone your life touches. When you choose

forgiveness, not because they deserve it, but because you deserve freedom, you are making a decision that ripples out further than you can see. You are

breaking a chain. You are choosing a different story. You are saying to God,

different story. You are saying to God, I trust you with this. I trust you with them. I trust you with me. Therefore, if

them. I trust you with me. Therefore, if

anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone. The new is

has come. The old has gone. The new is here. 2 Corinthians 5:17. The new is

here. 2 Corinthians 5:17. The new is here. the old pain, the old reaction

here. the old pain, the old reaction patterns, the old need to defend yourself at all costs. That does not have to be your story anymore. In

Christ, you get to be new. You get to walk into rooms differently. You get to respond where you once would have reacted. You get to pray where you once

reacted. You get to pray where you once would have plotted. That is

transformation. That is the power of a life fully surrendered to God. Before I

let you go, I want to speak directly to the person who is hurting the most right now. Maybe you've been carrying this

now. Maybe you've been carrying this wound for years. Maybe it happened just this week and it's still bleeding. Maybe

you're so tired of being the one who gets overlooked, talked down to, dismissed, and you are wondering if God

even sees you in it. He does. Oh,

friend, he does. He sees every single thing that has been done to you. He

knows every word that was said. He felt

every blow to your dignity. And he is not asking you to be quiet because your pain doesn't matter. He is asking you to be quiet because he is about to speak.

And what he has to say will change everything. Trust him. Stay quiet. Let

everything. Trust him. Stay quiet. Let

him fight. Let him heal. Let him

vindicate, restore, and redeem every single piece of this because that is what he does. That is who he is. He is

the God who sees you. The God who fights for you. The God who is working all

for you. The God who is working all things together for your good. Even the

ugly, painful, confusing, deeply unfair things. You are not forgotten. You are

things. You are not forgotten. You are

not forsaken. You are not finished. You

are being prepared. And your silence, it is holy. It is sacred. It is the

sound of trust. I love you. God loves

you more. And I will see you in the next one. The Lord your God is with you. The

one. The Lord your God is with you. The

mighty warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you. In his love, he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.