Have you ever seen someone throw a boomerang, or maybe try it yourself? The design of the boomerang, along with proper throwing technique, allows it to travel through the air and return right back to the thrower. As great of a quarterback as Tom Brady is, he cannot throw a football downfield, and then catch it without moving. But with a boomerang that is possible.
Proverbs 21:7 tells us, “The violence of the wicked will sweep them away, because they refuse to do what is just.” That verse is paraphrased in The Living Bible this way: “Because the wicked are unfair, their violence boomerangs and destroys them.”
So often in life we see wicked people become successful because of their wickedness (Have you ever heard of Washington D.C.?). We struggle with this, wondering why God allows the wicked to prosper, especially when just as often it seems that the godly struggle.
Why does God allow the wicked to get away with it? We need to think of the wicked as throwing a boomerang. It has left their hand, but it will return to them in judgment. Their own choices will “sweep them away” in the end. We also thank God that He is patient, as Peter reminds us, giving people the opportunity to repent (2 Peter 3:9). If God destroyed the wicked the second they sinned, none of us would have lived long enough to experience forgiveness ourselves.
If you are that wicked person, there is still time to repent before the boomerang returns. If there is breath in your lungs, God is giving you the chance to turn from sin and turn to Him, but you need to do it before it is too late. We never know how much time we have, but we do have the promise that our sin will find us out (Numbers 32:23).
Don’t get swept away by refusing to do what is right. When the boomerang returns to your hand it will be a day of reckoning, but if you turn your life around, you won’t be there when the boomerang comes back.
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