23/10/2024
Offense is a trap!
There were so many things that use to offend me in the past. One of them was seeing and hearing someone using the things of God in carnal ways. By that I mean, using spiritual principles to justify carnality (natural things).
For instance, feeling like someone is not being kind and instead of making inquiries to that person, they started singing “lord I want to be more loving in my heart”. It doesn’t stop there, the “act” continues on and on until we hear that this song was dropped in their spirit this morning: “I woke up singing it”.
Now, in my straightforward and crazy way, I am tempted to say: ah ah, how did it go from, “I don’t know why this song just popped up in my heart” to “I woke up singing it”? But, I rested temptation and removed myself from the scene.
By the way, the unkindness being incorrectly “discerned” was the grimace on my face and my curt movements. Not because I was mad or bitter or angry. No, I was in pain and needed to eat quickly and go take pain medicine. I could have explained myself but first, I would have had to address the “act of spiritualism” and then I would have fallen in the trap of offense. Yes, offense is a trap and one of the best ways to deal with it is simply to ignore it. Just hop, skip, sidestep, or jump over it!
This does not mean that you won’t have the feelings of offense. You absolutely will have those feelings however, you can choose to do absolutely nothing about it. That is one of the benchmarks of growth in this area. Now, you may ask, how do you know? Right? I know because there was a time I felt the need to address those situations each time and every time they happened in my presence. I no longer feel the need to do so. Now, I can simply move on. It is such a wonderful feeling! Trust me, you should try it…