From Our Church Covenant: “to be slow to take offense, but always ready for reconciliation and mindful of the rules of our Saviour to secure it without delay.”
We all know that offenses do happen. They seem to attack as a virus. They appear as an unwanted blemish. Offenses seem to have an energy of their own. No one has to want them, to plan them–they just happen. The things that combine them creep in, like cold air coming through the cracks, that suddenly sends its chill through the air of relationships. Friendships have to be cultivated, but not offenses; they keep showing up uninvited.
Offenses are like wildfires. Any incidental spark will ignite one. Once this fire gets started, it feeds off everything. Anything it comes in contact with is potential fuel for the fire. All the dead things that have no life or meaning anymore suddenly become fuel for the hottest fire. Offense feeds off all the things that have happened in the past that have been lying dead and dried up in a person’s memory. Just as with a wildfire, the incident that started it all may have been the smallest of flames, yet once it begins to feed on the old dead wood, it becomes a raging inferno.
As with wildfires, the only effective way to deal with them is through prevention. If someone drives by your place and throws out a cigarette butt that lies smoldering in the dry grass, the wise thing to do is immediately stomp it out. Likewise, if someone does or says something that is faulty and is offensive, the wise thing to do is to immediately put out the fires of offense. The worst thing one can do is to let it start burning, allowing it to catch all of one’s emotions, feelings, and thoughts on fire. If we don’t put out the fire that someone starts in our yard right away, it will spread to our neighbors’ yards and then get totally out of control, leaving an irreversible path of destruction.
The dealing with offenses requires self denial and faith in responding to them as God tells us to:
(1) “to be slow to take offense”–even to the point of doing good in return to those “who have despitefully used you.”
(2) “always ready for reconciliation”–human nature is quick to take offense and always ready to go to war, and finds the seeking of reconciliation to be against one’s grain.
(3) “mindful of the rules of our Saviour to secure it without delay”–rather than feed a fire, we are to contain it. Rather than tell everybody about how someone has wronged us, Jesus commands us to contain it and resolve it privately–see Matthew 18:15
Christianity depends on being successful in overcoming offenses.
SHARING
