Sent on January 27, 2016
Greetings to all,
In hearing and speaking about offense over the last few weeks, I’ve thought about what I’ve learned (usually the hard way) about responding to those who have offended me or whom I have offended.
Those who are closest to us usually have the greatest opportunity to offend. Your husband/wife relationships are where you’re most likely to take offense, so they’re your greatest tool for learning how to deal with it.
In the past my lack of sensitivity often gave Debbie reason to be offended. We might be in a group of people and I would make some remark that offended her, and on the way home she would bring up what I said.
Rather than try to understand how it made her feel I would get defensive and say something like, “that’s not what I meant, you’re just too sensitive.” Of course this would just add fuel to the fire because now I was demonstrating that I didn’t care how she felt.
Over time I realized that rather than defending myself, I had to acknowledge that what I’d said made her feel dishonored. Somehow I got it into my head that things would turn out much better if I just told her that the last thing I wanted to do was dishonour her, and then ask for forgiveness.
You see it doesn’t matter if we mean to dishonour or not. If our spouse feels dishonoured we must take responsibility for how we contributed to this and acknowledge their feelings and seek forgiveness.
Life is too wonderful to allow the poison of offense to destroy our relationships. Jesus gave us the power to be victorious over offense.
Declare today that, “the day may come when you offend me, but today is not that day.”
Which photo will represent your day?
Love to all,
P.B.
P.S. If you have 10 minutes for some inspiration and reflection, why not catch up with the Faithworks blog, where we publish two new articles a week.