Thoughts that have come from various quotes taken from the book, "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim Based Society" by John H. Hovis. Click here to link directly to the audio file.
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"It is unfortunate, but the vast majority of offenses that people carry with them today are the result of misunderstanding. What is even sadder is that the person who is perceived to be the offender most likely doesn’t have a clue that they have done anything wrong."
As quoted from the book "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim-Based Society" by John H. Hovis Page 211.
Nothing is worse than carrying a grudge so long that you can't even remember why you feel so negatively towards the person that offended you in the first place. Maybe the only thing worse is being offended by something someone did and learning that they had no intention of offending you at all. So many relationships have been damaged by perceived offenses that were never meant to be a slight of any kind. When we are stuck in victim thinking because of situations that weren't meant to be harmful, it is such a total and complete waste of time.
I'm not talking about situations where people actually mean to cause you pain. There are times when the dysfunction of another makes it easy for them to do things that make victims of us all. What I'm focused on today are those times when someone does something or says something that we take offense to when offense was not the objective. Holding those people in contempt is such a silly and counterproductive strategy for victors to have any part of.
I have a friend who shared about how it took her a long time to realize that her husband taking a deep breath and letting out a sigh wasn't s slight against her. You see in her upbringing, a sign from her father meant that she had done something wrong. That sigh meant that she was going to feel the shame of her actions in ways that made her doubt her worthiness before her father. The first time she heard her husband let out a sigh, a jolt of panic set into her life. I'm sure she started thinking through her actions to make sure she didn't do something that deserved punishment. Then she waited to see if her husband's actions would communicate his dismay at her in identity crushing ways.
Decades have gone by. She has had to learn that that sigh just meant that her husband was tired or he was thinking about something. It had nothing to do with her at all. Yet, her filter made it so that she could jump to a conclusion that might have lead to problems had they both not been committed to helping each other grow beyond what past experiences had to offer.
That's how easy it is to let something as simple as a sigh to put us on the defensive when it comes to offense. This woman was feeling offended by her husband. Had that feeling been left to linger that offense would have grown to bitterness and then, who knows what could have happened to this wonderful couple. We have to be so careful to do a gut check when we feel offended by what someone says or does, when those actions are really harmless by all accounts.
How does one battle the effects of offense? This should come as no surprise. It is through a steady dosing of forgiveness that offense can be minimized in a person's life.
In my friend's case, her husband hadn't done anything to offend her, but she still needed to forgive him. She didn't need to do so to his face. She needed to forgive him in her head and in her heart. It is when we go down the path of forgiveness that we open the door to the prison that offense threatens to lock us up in.
Today's Bible reading is a short one. It has in it what I believe we need when offense threatens to bind us up for no good reason.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Corinthians 13:7 (NIV)
The "it" mentioned in our reading today is love. Love always protects. It always trusts. It always hopes and it always preserves. That's how my friend treated her husband when he dared to sigh in her presence. In her case, she trusted that that sign didn't mean what it did when she was a little girl. She had to trust that her husband's love was meant for her best and shaming her wasn't something that would ever be good for the woman he loved.
What I see in the words of today's reading is the need for us to give each a beautiful gift. That gift is the benefit of the doubt. In other words, before we let offense settle in as a result of actions that are truly inconsequential, we might want to think through why the offense is there in the first place. What is it about our past that makes it so easy to be offended when we hear something said a certain way? Forgive that person and let God take you on a journey towards a greater healing as you give love through the benefit of the doubt.
Offense is such a time suck in our lives. We spend so much of our valuable day trying to figure out why someone would offend us and how to make sure that offense doesn't happen again. This is a prudent strategy when we are dealing with harmful and hateful people. When it is our loved ones that are doing the offending, maybe a little more scrutiny is in order.
Make forgiveness the cornerstone of your status as the victor God sees you to be. Don't let offense take up any valuable space in your life, especially when the offense is happening because of how you filter what is happening in your life. Make today be a day of freedom. That freedom happens as you exercise the power of love through forgiveness in your life.
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