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Sometimes it feels like our culture has turned into one focused on offense. We are offended easily, and if someone offends me it’s like they’ve committed the most heinous of crimes. What’s interesting is that God asks me as a Christians to be unoffendable. Why is this a big deal? Well, I have to understand what offense actually does.
When I am easily offended or have a spirit of offense, it creates a filter that affects everything I see, hear, and experience. Things that are not necessarily offensive bother me because I are looking to be offended.
Offense can be because I have an "It's all about me" attitude. Not in that I think everything in the world is about me but that everything in relation to me is about me. Like assuming that if someone is abrupt with me, it is because they are angry with me. What if they are just having a bad day?
Proverbs 18:19 An offended brother is more unyielding than a fortified city, and disputes are like the barred gates of a citadel.
Think about it, a fortified city can stand against huge onslaughts. This verse is saying that when I am offended I build walls between myself and others that are almost impossible to breach. If I build and bar a wall, I can't choose who the wall affects so I end up walling out God because of my offense with someone else. Also, no matter what that other person does they keep running into a wall that makes it impossible to rebuild the relationship.
Proverbs 19:11 A man's wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.
The Bible tells me to forgive others from my heart. This isn't just the shallow forgiveness where I say that I have forgiven them but then avoid them, don't speak to them, and don't seek to reconcile the relationship.
The bottom line is that God asks me to walk in love, the way He has loved me. Love is not and cannot be offended.
I think it’s time that I mature enough to be unoffendable. I think it’s time that I actually treat others with compassion. God has overlooked my failings time and time and time again. The least I can do is give a small portion of what he has given me. Can you imagine a world without offense? Let’s start building it.
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