“Love covers a multitude of sins [forgives and disregards the offenses of others]” (1 Peter 4:8). The Bible instructs us to make allowances for one another (see Ephesians 4:2). In other words, we are to allow people to be less than perfect.
I personally respond much better to people who allow me to be human than I do to those who expect me to be divine (perfect). I hate the pressure of trying to please someone in all things. It makes me uneasy and on edge, and I feel as if I must tiptoe around lest I offend in some minor thing. If I want to reap relationships that allow me to be myself, I must sow them.
I was recently speaking with my administrative assistant. We discussed the fact that it is impossible to spend as much time together as we do and never see each other’s imperfect side. We must be generous with letting things go. That means we don’t need to make a big deal out of every error and many times don’t even need to mention them at all.
I have noticed in myself and others that even when we are willing to forgive, we want the person we are forgiving to
know
that we are forgiving him or her. We usually want to at least mention it.
Y
OU
W
ILL
B
E
T
ESTED
E
VERY
D
AY
Why is it so hard to completely ignore offenses? We want to mention the fact that we overlooked their obnoxious behaviors so the people who offend us do not think they can treat us improperly and get away with it—it is a type of self-protection. But God wants us to trust Him to protect us as well as to heal us from
every
hurt and emotional wound,
every day.
I wonder how weary we would be at the end of each day if God mentioned every tiny thing we do wrong. He does deal with us, but I am quite sure He also overlooks a lot of things. If people are corrected too much, it can discourage them and break their spirits.
We should form a habit of dealing only with what God Himself prompts us to address, not just everything we feel like confronting, or every little thing that bothers us. I am the type of person who would not be inclined to let anybody get away with anything.
I don’t like feeling someone is taking advantage of me, partially because I was abused in my childhood and partially because I am human, and none of us embraces disrespect. In the past, I was quick to tell everyone his or her faults, but I have learned that is not pleasing to God.
Just as we want others to give us mercy, we must give it to them. We reap what we sow—nothing more or less. Even God may withhold His mercy from us if we are unwilling to give mercy to others.
We are to be Peacemakers, not Peace Breakers. Always remember that it takes two people to fight. If you respond with harsh words, you will stir up anger, but if you respond to an offensive statement with “a soft answer,” you will “turn away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1). Someone has said that anger is one letter away from danger. Just add a
d,
which could well represent
devil,
in front of anger, and you see the trouble with rage.
I believe that our lives can be full of peace if we simply decide to do what is right in every situation that comes along. There is a right and a wrong way to handle the storms of life. But until I was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to learn about the power that is available to me as a believer to do the right thing, I never handled offenses right.
Jesus’ economy is upside down from what the world teaches us. He says that we can have peace in the midst of the storm. Now just think about how awesome that would be, if
no matter what happened,
you could remain full of peace.
You can keep your peace in an unexpected traffic jam. You can keep your peace when you have to wait in the grocery store line, while the person in front of you doesn’t have any prices on his products, the clerk runs out of cash-register tape, and she’s new, and she doesn’t know what she’s doing anyway, and she is fumbling around trying to get the tape in the register, and you are in the biggest rush you have faced all week.
Even then, you can keep from losing your peace, from getting a headache or an ulcer, and from blowing your whole witness by acting like a fool. Even then, you can just stay steady because you have the power living in you to stay in peace.
Jesus said that He gives us power even to “trample upon serpents and scorpions, and [physical and mental strength and ability] over all the power that the enemy [possesses]” (Luke 10:19). He promised that nothing will harm us in any way. If we have the power over the enemy, surely we can overlook the offenses of others. He gives us the energy we need to treat people right.
Understand that every time you are tempted to be offended and upset, your faith is being tried. The Word says,
[You should] be exceedingly glad on this account, though now for a little while you may be distressed by trials and suffer temptations, so that [the genuineness] of your faith may be tested, [your faith] which is infinitely more precious than the perishable gold which is tested and purified by fire. [This proving of your faith is intended] to redound to [your] praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6–7)
Peter was saying, “Don’t be amazed at the fiery trials that you go through, because they are taking place to test your quality.” Every relationship test is an opportunity to glorify the work of God in you as a testimony to those watching you endure the offense.
Why do you think that in school you had to take final exams before passing to the next grade? You didn’t graduate to the next level just because you showed up at school every day. You got a diploma only when you took the final exams and showed that you could answer the questions.
The Bible says that God will never allow more to come on us than what we can bear. But with every temptation, He also provides the way out. Remember, the only time we will not find the strength of God in our lives to do what is before us is if we’re trying to do something that God never told us to do. He never told us to hold offenses against others. In fact, forgiveness is a very big issue with God.
Jesus said,
For if you forgive people their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14–15)
D
ON’T
A
SK
Y
OURSELF FOR
A
DVICE
Solomon said that he took counsel with his own mind, and in essence he concluded that it was like “searching after wind” (see Ecclesiastes 1:17). Our minds say to be upset if someone offends us, but God says to let it go.
I often share a teaching that I call “Shake It Off,” which is based on the time Paul was on the island of Malta. He was helping some people build a fire when a poisonous serpent crawled out and attached itself to his hand. At first, when the people saw it they thought that he must be wicked to have such an evil thing happen to him. They watched, waiting for him to fall over dead.
But the Bible says that Paul simply “shook it off.”
We can learn so much from that. When somebody offends or rejects us, we need to see it as a bite from Satan and just shake it off. If we hear that somebody has been talking about us, we need to shake it off. When we are sitting in a traffic jam and begin to feel upset, we need to let it go.
Frustration won’t stop on its own. It keeps raising the pressure higher and higher, as if somebody is tightening the screws on our nerves. But when you feel that happening, you can literally shake it off and refuse to give in to it. Sometimes we make things bigger than they need to be; we blow them out of proportion. We can choose to let offenses go before they take root in us and cause serious problems.
Jesus told the disciples that if they entered towns that didn’t receive them, they should just go to the next town. He told them to shake the dust off of their feet and move on. He didn’t want the disciples to dwell on the rejection they had experienced; He wanted them to stay focused on sharing their testimony of His working in their lives.
Likewise, as we follow the Spirit, we can shake off offenses and hold on to our peace. When others see that we are able to remain calm even when “the serpent” bites us, they will want to know where that peace is coming from in our lives.
When we are in a state of upset, we cannot hear from God clearly. The Bible promises us that God will lead us and walk us out of our troubles, but we cannot be led by the Spirit if we are offended and in a dither.
We can’t get away from the storms of life, or the temptation to be irritated at someone. But we can respond to offenses by saying, “God, You are merciful, and You are good. And I am going to put my confidence in You until this storm passes over” (see Psalm 57:1). We cannot prevent feeling negative emotions, but we can learn to manage them. We can trust God to give us grace to act godly even in an ungodly situation.
One day we were looking for a parking place, and a car was backing out, so Dave waited so he could get the spot. He had his blinker on, clearly showing that he was waiting to park. Well, a guy behind us on a bicycle was very put out because we had stopped. He was ranting and raving, and he pulled around Dave, but we held our peace and smiled at him. But while this guy was railing on us, somebody else took our parking place!
I can remember when that kind of thing might have really irritated us, but we’ve been through so many trials that we could shrug and say, “Bless you, hope you enjoy that parking place!” And we found another one. We’ve learned not to let offensive people steal our joy anymore. You might say that we have learned not to let offensive people offend us.
What good does it do to get upset at someone who takes your parking place? You can get all mad and bothered, but the other person will still have your spot. And you probably will never see that offensive person again as long as you live, so why let it steal your peace, even for a few minutes?
As soon as you lose your peace, the devil wins. If getting you offended works once, believe me, he will set you up with the same opportunity over and over.
Later, Dave said that person who took our place actually helped us. We didn’t know that we were in the wrong block, and if we had parked there we would have been far from where we wanted to go. What Satan means for our harm, God intends for our good. Doing what is right leads to peace and joy.
Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost are a progression. If we don’t know who we are in Christ, then we won’t realize that we have His strength in us to do the right thing. Then we won’t have peace, and if we don’t have peace, we won’t have joy. So if you have lost your joy, you need to back all the way up and find out where it was that you lost your peace, and then do what is right in that situation.
People without Christ, who don’t live in the kingdom of God, don’t have the power to keep from being offended. When they have a problem, they only have one choice, which is to get upset. But we have a choice. We can believe that Jesus is in our situation with us, and even though sometimes it feels as if He is sleeping through our storm, we can know that He is able to tell the storm to be still—and when He does, it will stop.
D
ON’T
C
RY
O
VER
S
PILLED
M
ILK
If you are going to walk in peace, you have to be willing to be adaptable and adjustable to people and circumstances. When I lived in the “explode mode,” it never failed that one of my children spilled something at the dinner table—every night. And every night I had a fit.
They would tip over their cups and start crying as soon as they saw their milk running under the bowls. I learned that when you spill something, you have to try to get to it before it gets to the crack in the table, because milk will sour quickly in there with all that other hidden dirt! And then eventually you will have to take the whole table apart and scrape dried milk and foodstuff out of its crevices with a table knife. (Now I have a table with a glass top, but everybody scratches it! You see, there is always something you will have to put up with and let go of in life.)
I used to shout at the kids, “Can’t we ever have one meal in peace?” I didn’t realize we could have had a meal in peace if I stopped shouting at everyone. I could have brought peace to our table every night if I had just cleaned up and shut up.
So, if you have wondered how to have peace, I can tell you that it will come if you will quit making a big deal about everything. You will have to be willing to let go of getting distraught over accidents or not getting your way.
One night I was under the table because whatever the kids had spilled had made it to the crack in the table before I got there, and the liquid was running down the center table legs. I was having a fit, and the kids were upset, and somebody kicked me in the head, and that made me even madder. I knew it was an accident, I knew he or she didn’t do it on purpose. Poor Dave had to be weary from sitting down to dinner after working hard all day and having to endure my outburst. (And I couldn’t figure out why he wanted to go to the driving range every night and hit golf balls, so I’d throw a fit about that too.)
So there I was, under the table, saying, “Every night somebody’s got to spill something, and we just need some peace around here. ...” And the Holy Ghost came unto me (right under that table), saying, “Joyce, once the milk is spilled, no matter how big of a fit you have, you are not going to get it to run back up the table legs, across the table, and into the glass.” And He said, “Joyce, you need to learn how to go with the flow.”
There are some things that we can do something about, but there are a whole lot of things that we can’t do anything about. If it is something we can’t do anything about, then we need to let it go and keep our joy. We need to hold our peace, do what is right, and let God work on our behalf.