How a Christian should treat a situation where s/he has been cheated

Who hasn’t been cheated in life? I’m sure you are a witness to the fact that no matter how careful you are in life, you do fall prey to cheaters in one way or the other. If you haven’t, then you are one lucky person. I’m aware of the fact that the word ‘cheat’ is largely associated with relationship issues where partners have had issues of infidelity. May we please relax that context a little bit in this post and consider material related cheating. However, the solution given in this post may also help for cases of infidelity.

Often you are left to take care of yourself after having been cheated. The pain, depression and sorrow you go through may kill you if you don’t nurse yourself to cope.  Often this is at the point where you don’t expect any good or fulfilled promises from what you had initially agreed on with the person or entity you are dealing with.

I have been cheated also in many ways and I would like to share some of my notable examples.

1. One time a school mate while I was at university lured me into joining a pyramid scheme at which I participated in and eventually lost some of my money.
2. The same trap of pyramid schemes got me when a sister invited me for a questnet (I strongly believe they were a pyramid scheme) presentation in my early years of employment. It didn’t work as I had hoped and I felt cheated.
3. One person I trusted borrowed some money to run his business but he never returned even a cent of what he took from me until now after four years.
4. Recently a prospective customer from fiverr gave a translation sample request with a promise to give me a job worth more than $ 350. The sample could have been a $ 5 translation job but it was given away as a demonstration of my capabilities. Nothing has come back from that fiverr test so far and I’m tempted to believe that this person needed just that small paragraph translated not the more than 10K words that were promised.

I have a lot more examples but the above are good enough to help you relate to the type of cheating I’m talking about.

Next I give biblical suggestions on how you can nurse yourself to live with the reality of having been cheated.

Pray about it

When you pray you are actually telling God about your feelings and opening up to Him to guide you on how to deal with the situation. The Bible has advised us to cast all our burden unto Jesus because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). When you have prayed about it, don’t lose hope because you don’t know how God will intervene. At this point, you suit yourself for anything that comes your way.

Remember that God has promised you the following:

1. He will protect you (Psalm 121:7)
2. He will never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5)
3. He will take revenge on your behalf (Romans 12:19)

Understand that God saw it coming

God is in full control and He will allow some of the undesired pressures of life to come our way. I have written a related article entitled “Does God care for me if I’m sick and afflicted in many ways?” Nothing just happens but everything happens under God’s control. God saw it coming and allowed it your way because He knew you would live through it (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Forgive

Forgiving the person that wronged you is very difficult for many reasons. One could be the pain you feel when you see a person havening benefited at your cost. The Bible teaches that we should not only forgive but also not let the sun go down in our anger.

Un-forgiveness puts you in danger of Hell. You must live forgiveness and not only do some lip service.

How do you know you have forgiven someone?

1. You get conviction in your heart that you have forgiven the person.
2. You treat the person as though nothing had happened such that the person does not sense anger or the desire to revenge in you.
3. You consider the person’s interest before your issue. For example, if the person owes you some money, you will allow for the person to pay for his or her children’s school fees before paying you back.
4. Never count what the person owes you as debt but take it off your list.
5. Don’t charge the person in a court of law or something of that nature. Often people would let the law deal with a person on their behalf.

Be content with your position

Contentment is easy to reach when you are mindful of the fact that we are in this world for a while. Life is too short to keep wondering about outstanding issues with people and companies.

Don’t look any further, answers for all our life problems are in the Bible.

Be blessed.