RESPONDING TO OFFENSES

As I have grown in my spiritual walk with Christ through the years, I have noticed some distinct changes in my life, my attitude and even in my responses to others as I have felt the painful hand of hurt and offense, touch my heart. When I choose the road less traveled and embrace the reality of my situations and think about them in terms of how God may be looking at them and not what my mind churns up about them, I am relieved from the pressure of having to have an answer concerning them. I am learning, that my only response in any matter, is to show the love of God and trust Him in things that I do not understand, knowing that in due time, He will reveal to me what I need to know and understand. Every offense against me, can be used as an opportunity to reflect the Character of the one that lives inside me, if I will only change my perspective.

One day a young nurse was complaining to her pastor that she had been offended by some patients, “Thank God for that” her preacher replied, in which the young woman said, “What do you mean by that, preacher?”, “Why, if you were carrying a vase and someone bumped into you, that which is inside the vase could possibly spill out on them”, he said, and “As we go through life and people bump into us, we have the opportunity to spill out the Lord Jesus on them” he concluded.

 

You see, we have the choice when we are offended to spill out anger, bitterness, jealousy and revenge, or broken and contrite hearts. This is how God’s Character inside His children spills out into the world. We may never be called to suffer an agonizing death for our faith. But any time that we quench the fleshly nature in us that is constantly warring to show it’s ugly face, by yielding to that which compels us to do the right thing, then we are denying the flesh it’s gratification of glory, thereby, bringing honor to the One who deserves it.  When we allow our perspective to reflect or mirror the embodiment of Christ in us, then any suffering that we may undergo will be worth it. Think of how the world would be, if we would walk more cautiously in trying to eliminate our critical attitude’s that repels others away from us ,when we respond to them in a wrong way, no matter what they have heaped on us. Proverbs 19:11 tells us that, “A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.”  Godly wisdom helps us to have tolerance for the person who has offended us and gives us patience to find God’s plan to restore the situation. God always has a plan of restoration.  Sometimes we just need the patience to believe it will happen.

 

Will you today sweet friend, face your trial that you may be going through with an attitude of good cheer, humility and a godly patience with the one who has wronged you and above all else, have the faith that God will honor you by your seeing things from His perspective and not your fleshly way of responding to a bad event. Matthew 7:5 tells us to first, remove the beam from our own eye, then we can see clear enough to help remove our brother’s speck ….the part about removing my beam in order to see the situation clearly, gets me every time. I can only see clearly, when I remove that which is causing me not to see the situation clearly. Most of the time, we must detach ourselves from the initial or onset of our  offense and step back to see the situation more clearly. How you respond to your offenses will reflect the strength of your walk, in Jesus!

Loving on you today my friend,

Bren