Hello beloved child of God, I hope you’re fine by God’s grace.
We’re going to talk about something huge today; offense.
Have you ever felt offended, hurt or angered when someone commented on or criticized your work, or said something which you didn’t agree with?
Let’s be honest, I have, and I figured out that I’m probably not the only person on Earth who makes it all about her and takes criticism (or feedback) personally.
People who take things personally are usually considered as highly sensitive people. It’s not really intentional, but it’s because they process information deeply and feel emotions intensely. Words really matter to them, both positive and negative. It doesn’t even only have to be about words, it also involves the way people look at them, or even the intonation of their voice.
I consider myself as a highly sensitive person but I don’t believe that being a highly sensitive person makes me exempt from having to obey God’s Word.
A few Scriptures remind me that I have to learn to process my emotions so as not to take everything personally and not to take offense at everything.
We’re going to look at a few Bible verses about offense and anger and then we’re going to make it practical by looking at a few examples.
1. Learning To Listen Without Drawing Conclusions
James 1:19-20 NIV
My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.
At times you can be in a conversation with someone and the person says something which would potentially be able to offend you.
The Bible clearly says that we should be slow to become angry. This means that someone can say something which would potentially make you angry, but you don’t have to get irritated as soon as someone says something.
Learning to be slow to anger, I guess would mean letting the other one say everything they have to say while listening and trying to understand them.
Unfortunately, when someone speaks, in general we’re not listening, we’re looking for what we will say in return. This leaves room for offense because we don’t take time to listen to the person and to understand them.
When we don’t listen and we don’t take time to understand, we can make a wrong interpretation and we’ll be offended for no good reason.
Being highly sensitive doesn’t mean that we can’t learn to direct our conversations in a way to minimize offense.
2. Overlooking Offense
Proverbs 19:11 NLT
Sensible people control their temper; they earn respect by overlooking wrongs.
Proverbs 19:11 NIV
A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.
At times it’s not you who misunderstood, it’s actually the other person who really did/said something annoying.
It can happen in everyday life. It can be a parent, a sibling, a loved one, even your spouse or your child.
You get to choose if you’re going to cry, yell and spank doors, or if you’re going to just overlook the offense.
Personally, it’s easier for me to let go when it’s someone I won’t have to work with or deal with on the long run, but when it’s someone who’s close to me or with whom I’ll have to collaborate for a long time, I feel like I have to let them know and understand that they have offended me.
The problem is, it doesn’t always work that way. Some people will never recognize that they have offended you, and at times we even feel worse after telling them how they hurt us.
One thing we can learn to do is not to try to ignore what we felt, but to choose to overlook it, to move on, to get past it.
Honesty, if everyone had to get angry and create drama every time they were offended people would almost always be bitter towards each other, because we aren’t perfect and we can offend others knowingly or unknowingly.
At times it’s important to think of the long term effect of going to the person in anger and telling them “this is what you did”. I know that in some cases when it’s something really important we have to go to the person to tell them what’s wrong (without making it look like a battle or a court of accusation but more with the mindset of coming up with solutions). Nevertheless, some things are also minor events and don’t need us to dwell on them.
I’m not saying this because it’s easy, but because it’s what God’s Word asks us to do. This means that we have to direct our lives according to God’s Words and not according to our own feelings. It means being ready to say ” I’m not where I should be here” and asking help from God just as taking actionable steps to behave better.
By the way, criticisms can be hard to swallow pills but we have to learn to believe that the person who makes these criticisms may not be making them to offend us but instead to help us. So, instead of dwelling on the offense, we should focus on the actual criticism, see what we can learn from it and thank God for it.
3. Calming Disputes
Proverbs 15:18 NIV
A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict, but the one who is patient calms a quarrel.
If you’re always the first person to get angry during conversations, debates, and whatever, then there’s a problem. If you’re the first to scream, to raise your voice in conversations then there’s a problem, but don’t take it personally, it’s not against you, me too I’m the first one to get angry in arguments, but as I said earlier we have to learn to direct our lives not according to our emotions but according to God’s Word.
Imagine you’re in a debate and someone says something theologically incorrect or something morally inappropriate. (Honestly these are two of my strongest triggers).
Did you know that you could express yourself, give your points without getting stirred up, without screaming, without getting angry, without creating a quarrel?
In fact, when a debate turns into a quarrel, as a Christian, you should be the one who calms the quarrel. Calming the quarrel starts with making sure that you’re not getting carried away by anger. This means you should make sure you’re not short-tempered, and it’s something that we should perhaps all learn.
So, I’ve given a few Bible verses and tips on how to deal with offense but I think a good thing to do is to prepare ourselves for offense. In the middle of the offense we may not be able to apply all those tips in the optimal way because we don’t train ourselves or prepare ourselves for it.
Athletes don’t go for competitions without training/preparation. It should be the same for us. We have to know our triggers, we have to know what makes us really angry, and to rehearse some scenarios and prepare our reactions prayerfully beforehand such that when offense will come we’ll react in a more appropriate way.
Exercise
This week’s exercise will be simple
1. Identify your triggers. What are those things that would really make you angry, offended, annoyed. Write them down
2. Re-read this blog post, pray to ask for God’s help to manage your emotions and prepare an action plan on how to deal with offense when your triggers will be pushed.
Prayer
Father Lord God Almighty, I confess that I am easily offended and I easily get angry. Teach me Lord to listen to others without drawing negative conclusions, to overlook offense, to learn from criticism, and to calm disputes instead of stirring them up. In Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen.
It’s Now Your Turn
Are you the first one to get angry during a conversation?
Do you have hard time accepting criticisms?
Please let us know in the comments section.
Please share this blog post with your friends, family members and whoever may be struggling with depression. You may save a life by sharing this.
If you’ve not done it yet, subscribe to my Newsletter so as not to miss any future blog post.
Click here to subscribe to my Newsletter.
If you’re wondering about how to become a Christian and how to surrender your life to Jesus Christ, you can click on this link to invite The Lord Jesus Christ into your life to be your Lord and Savior and to confess your sins to Him.
Prayer Requests
If you need me to pray for your healing contact me via WhatsApp +23795163509 so that we can schedule a WhatsApp call
Invitation
Click here if you’re looking for a church. I recommend Elevation Church to you. A wonderful Christ-centered Church in which you aren’t limited by your location and in which you can see what God can do through you.
If you’ve enjoyed reading this blog post please subscribe to my Newsletter so as not to miss any new post.
Also, please consider sharing this blog post on all your social media accounts.
God bless you
Victoria Eyog
0 Comments