We live in a society where it seems like people are getting offended left and right. One group is offended if they don’t feel like they aren’t being treated fairly. One group is offended if the wrong political party is in office. One group may be offended because some may not accept that they “identify as a tree, dog, man, woman, it, they, etc.”. It is like walking on thin ice no matter where you go. Let’s not even begin to dabble into the world of Facebook. Every where you turn, someone is offended. My husband and I have friends from church, and we all joke around about being offended. However, living in offense is no joke.
I once lived a life where I was offended often and allowed that to determine my happiness…my commitments…
It wasn’t until I surrendered my life to Christ that I learned that I didn’t have to allow offenses to control my life. My pastor tells us quite often, through his sermons and just in conversation, that it is inevitable….someone in the church WILL offend you. We are all human, and we give in to our flesh more often than we should.
It is our human nature that when someone wrongs us, we want to gather up a team of people that will feel the same way as we do. We tell them about what that person did to us, and then 9 times out of 10, those people will join the gang of the offended and hurt. The sad thing is, 9 times out of 10, the ones who are on our side do not even know the person who offended or hurt us.
I am guilty of doing that in the past. I was so selfish and prideful that when someone offended me or hurt me, I would go complaining to whoever would hear me and take my side. So, instead of confronting the person who offended me or hurt me, I would just walk away with a sense of pride and arrogance because I had the upper hand. After all, I had my posse. So anytime me and my posse were in the presence of the person who offended or hurt me, we would immediately put on that cloak of self righteousness and walk past that person with the stench of pride, bitterness, and deep down resentment.
What was really sad in all of this is that the person I thought offended me or hurt me, had no clue that they did anything because they actually didn’t. I took whatever they did or said so personal that I brought it all upon myself. So here I was in all my bitter glory thinking I had the upper hand, but the truth of the matter is that…I really had nothing but my own stupidity in my hand.
I heard something one day, “It takes more work to hold a grudge and be offended than it does to just forgive someone and move on.” There is so much truth in that. Looking back, I think about how much work it took for me to stay bitter, angry, resentful, etc.
“Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.”
Proverbs 26:12 KJV
“Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go: first be reconciled to your brother, and then come present your offering.”
Matthew 5: 23-24 NASB
So, instead of resolving my offense or hurt, I just walked away. Commitment didn’t matter to me. Integrity didn’t matter to me. Character didn’t matter to me. I can’t even begin to tell you how many jobs, relationships, and friendships I walked away from because of my own prideful stupidity. All I had to do was to talk to that person and work it out. I spent more time “acting” better than others, more “righteous” than others, when in the end, I was just a prideful, arrogant, self-righteous, bitter, butt head.
So, is there a lesson in all of this? Yes, don’t be a bitter butt head. Work out your differences with your brothers and sisters. Love one another no matter what. Forgive one another as God forgives us. By forgiving, that means you don’t hold on to the hurt and put on a front when talking to the person who hurt you—you LET IT GO! Don’t pretend to be “not offended” when you clearly are offended, and everyone can see it because you become defensive about “not being offended”. Talk to that person instead of getting a bitter posse to back you up. How many times are we supposed to forgive our brother or sister? Well, if you don’t know the answer to that, I’ll let you look that one up. Just a hint: it’s found in the Bible. 😉
A Little Bit of This and A Little Bit of That 