Somebody accidently bumps into you at a restaurant, and "Dosent" say excuse me, someone cuts you off on the highway, the person in front of you in line at the grocery store has 20 items in the 10 items or less line, someone disagrees with your reasoning on a particular topic.....Do you get "OFFENDED"??? "YEEEES"!!!!! We "All" do at some point or another but I think the moral of this is not to just admit that, "yes, I do get offended when I think that somebody is trying to get over on me" but I think the real issue is the strife and the anger that we carry around in our hearts for those particular people who we feel have offended us. Jesus said in Psalm 119:165, "Great peace have they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them". Easier said then done, right? No, not right. Although I can agree that this scripture does sound pretty easy being spoken but I truly do believe that we can become not only hearers of his word but also "doers". It's truly a hard task to say, okay, I'm gonna let this person spit in my face and I'm gonna turn the other cheek (not literal spit but you know what I mean) this type of "strength" can only be mastered through his "grace" in us. I dont think we can do that (turn the other cheek) without God's grace in our lives.
Transparency time.....
My daddy has been an inspirational figure in my life and not because he was a great father to me but because he wasnt (in the beginning). My daddy showed me a very important lesson very early in life and he is probably none the wiser that he taught me this. But he showed me, through his actions, "What type of man/husband that I didnt want to end up with". Now God had to really sit me down and have some long conversations with me to help me understand why my daddy's role was so important in my life. Because yes, I had some anger towards him because he wasnt this great role model of a father that I thought he should have been but God had to literally show me, that my dad's actions as bad as they might have been, werent for "naught" (that's how my moma talks-lol!). This man single-handidly showed me what I did not want out of life. Now, looking back, I wouldnt take anything for my journey with my dad because he taught me so much in respect to relationships and how good ones work and how bad ones "wont". I witnessed first hand my dad's disrespect towards my mom. I've heard the stories of what type of person he was 'back in the day' and I can honestly tell you that I still loved him, well at least I thought I did. I thought, now as a woman, I had forgiven him for alot of the things he had done (or not done) towards my mom and also towards his family back in the day(s) but I hadnt. I walked around loving, kissing, hugging and laughing with my daddy for years and yet, I still held "unforgiveness" in my heart towards him. Well, my unforgivness towards my daddy begin to seep into my relationship with my then boyfriend, now husband. I could give a 'plethra' of examples of me "clowning" my then boyfriend about something he did that resembled charecteristics of my dad, yeah, can you say, "let it go";-). Finally one day Herman told me, "babe, if you dont resolve (forgive) the anger and resentment (offence) in your heart for your daddy then you are going to ruin every relationship that you touch, Wow! Pretty powerful words coming from a 24 year old at the time. And it finally hit me, I needed to let go of this poision in me that was going to eventually leave me bitter and angry for the rest of my life. Well, if we look closer at Psalms 119:165 it simply states that, if we love God's law then we will have, 1."Great Peace" and 2. "Nothing shall offend us".
Now, I want to be responsile and very clear here, I dont think God says to us, if you love my law then you will "never" be offended, he knows we will be offended however I think he wants to teach us not to "walk in offense". He dosent want us to internalize the wrong doings of someone (towards us) and allow it to eat away at us from the inside out until we ourselves are now the "offender" because now that we've been offended, guess what, we now offend. I did this to Herman quite often because I had been offended or hurt with regard to the lack of respect my dad showed my mom and his family and we all know the pyschological process of this, "hurt people hurt". There's a passage in the bible where God talks about how Moses was offended in Exodus 2:11-12 concerning the treatment of the Hebrew slaves which caused him to slay the Egyptian. God shows us in this passage that the spirit of offense can bring forth murder. Moses was offended and once he responded to the feeling of offence he became an offender (Bible.com). How many of us can raise our hand to the fact that that too is or has been you? I surely can! The one who was offended became the offender by murdering the Egyptian. When we are offended we may not physically kill a person, however we do kill them with our mouths. Our mouths, if we are not careful can cause much damage. The Word of God says in James 3:8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. The character killing things that we speak with our mouths while entertaining the spirit of offence makes us an offense toward God.
So, with all of that said.....Have you "killed" anybody today? Have you hurt or disrespected someone today because someone may have hurt or disrespected you? Let's look deeper yall into why we respond to offence so easily. Why am I giving this person (who has offended me) complete power and control over me because I've allowed the spirit of offence to creep in. From my experience with my dad, this type of vice will eat at you and you will be none the wiser. It will become apart of your everyday actions to the point where you will make excuses for why you have reason to offend. "Well, she flipped me off" or "she rolled her eyes at me", or "she think she better than me" (ouh, I've heard that one alot;-). The spirit of offense will affect everything you do and you wont even realize that you are offending God by offendinig others. This is serious yall and we need to wake up to the tricks of Satan. His tricks are always the same, his tactics and the vices he uses are new and different however each time. That's how he gains traction in our lives because we're not paying attention to the fact that he's using the same trick, however he's just using your dad, your husband, your nagging moma or even your kids to get you off track, unfocused and "offending". We have to be spiritually insinc with God enough to know that, yeah devil this is you again, same trick, different people/tactics/situations!
I love you all with the love of God! Be Blessed and let's stop so easily being offended. It only takes us further and further away from where God is calling us to be! And it takes us that much longer to get in place to do the work that he has called us to do!
Oh and if you're wondering what happened with my relationship between me and my daddy, well, let's just say, I still "love" him to life! Although, we've got a long way to go, I no longer feel the way I use to feel toward him. I havent completely let it all go (I'm a work in progress) but everyday I love that ole' crazy man a little bit more!
April
And remember, Follow this blog yall & comment if so choose to!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
