Victim Mentality
We all love to celebrate in the good times and praise God for everything He’s done for us, but what about the bad times? Do you still sing and clap your hands when you’re in the depths of despair? Today we’ll be looking at what a victim mentality is, who had it in the Bible and how it can affect you.
“The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”
The Israelites have only been out of Egypt for 2 months and 2 weeks and already they have lost their faith. Did they not learn anything? They literally only just left Elim, which was basically paradise. They were now in the desert again with all the toils and hardship that comes with it.
The last time they were in the desert, they grumbled and complained against Moses, and this time they’re in the desert again, grumbling and complaining. They even started to reminisce about Egypt and act like they had it better there where they sat around pots of meat. The Israelites were a faithless people – they praised God when He blessed them, but they grumbled and complained against Him when they were going through struggle. At what point did God ever say “Don’t worry, everything will be sunshine and rainbows all the time”? God never said that. God told Moses that He would lead them into the land He promised Abraham (Exodus 3:17). The Israelites had lost sight of God’s promise. They were focused on the here and now instead of the future that lay ahead.
“ 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.”
After years and years and slavery, they felt entitled to a good and easy-going life. How many of us can relate? I believe the Israelites had the mentality that things were happening to them and not for them.
Whenever there was hardship, they grumbled and complained, and they were only fired up about God when things were going their way. This is a victim mentality. God literally led them out of Egypt and drowned their slave drivers, yet they had the audacity to say they wanted to go back to Egypt. A crucial thing we can learn from the Bible today that the Israelites failed to learn is that God works for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). The Israelites could’ve chosen to see God through the hardship. They could’ve decided to have a deeper reliance on Him and have faith that He would protect them and pull them through, but instead they completely lost their faith.
I have been guilty of a victim mentality. I deceived myself into thinking that wherever God would lead me it would be all sunshine and rainbows. In many ways I relate to the Israelites.
In June of this year, I followed God’s calling for my life and decided to join a mission team. UPDATE: it is not all sunshine and rainbows. It is hard work and it takes a lot of heart work. It turns out that all of my sin and my problems have simply followed me to the mission field. This is on me – I chose not to deal with my sin and my problems. The issue is I have had a victim mentality whilst being on the mission field. I’ve missed my home, my friends, the church I’ve come from, and struggled to create close bonds with the other Christians on the mission team.
If I can be honest, I’ve been on the mission team for four months and haven’t really changed. I started to get sick and tired of the mundane day in, day out. I’ve been called higher to be a leader in God’s church. I left my career to work in a café. I started my master’s degree. And on top of this I’m building a church. I feel like I have no time for myself and I got really down about this, and I started to struggle a lot. I wanted to spend all my time in bed, I didn’t want to leave the house at all, not even to pray. It’s a lot of hard work! I even started to have satanic thoughts about leaving the mission team, regretting my decision to follow God’s calling. Ultimately, I wanted to completely step down from leadership and settle with being mediocre. That’s when I realised that I had a victim mentality.
Does everyone else on this team not feel the exact same way? I’m not the only one who misses their home or is working hard and getting tired. Because everything wasn’t sunshine and rainbows I wanted to quit. I have this terrible habit of praising God when I’m happy and want to throw in the towel when I’m struggling.
Every test is a lesson and all lesson are blessings if you choose to see what God is trying to teach you. You’ll never succeed in life if you constantly think bad things happen to you. Bad things happen for you! In all things, God is working for the good of those who love Him. If you don’t love God, then bad things are happening to you and not for you – but that’s completely your choice. Someone who loves God should never have a victim mentality but instead have a victors mentality. Someone who sees that things happen for them are never focused on the problem but instead are focused on what’s behind the problem or what blessings come after it. They’re focused on how they can learn, change, and grow. A victim gets upset, they think ‘Why me?’ and want to give up. The Israelites chose to be victims, but who will you decide to be?