Handling situations better

Being quick to forgive will benefit you more than not doing so

Proverbs 18:19 “A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city, and contentions are like the bars of a castle.”

When someone offends you or does something to hurt you, that offence comes to trap you and place you in a prison. The bars of your prison are strengthened by your negative attacking attitude towards others.

How can you tell if you meet someone who is offended? They will be hard to reason with and their offence will make them offensive towards you. They will always have an excuse for their bad behavior and they’ll blame some long ago offence.

I heard of one man who would curse and swear when telling of his offence. He was asked why he talked that way and he replied, ‘you would too if this had happened to you.’ I hope not, but his talk revealed not only that he was offended but that he’s still offended.

It’s sad that he didn’t know how to get past a onetime bad event. He never learned how to properly vent and release his offence but he carries it and responded out of it for days, months, and now even years later.

In my experience family offences are the hardest and heaviest weights to get rid of. I worked with two brothers who were strong church-goers but they would never talk to each other.

By themselves, each man was really nice to work with but it was also very noticeable that they never spoke a word between them. I asked one brother what happened and he said, ‘twelve years ago my brother borrowed my push mower and when he returned it, it was empty of gas!’

I then went to the other brother and asked if he knew why his brother never spoke to him. He said, ‘no, but I really would like to know.’

I told him about returning the mower with an empty tank. He said his son was asked to fill the tank before he returned the mower but must have forgotten. He went directly to his brother and said that he was real sorry and asked for forgiveness. The next day they came to work laughing and carrying on. The offence was gone.

Imagine two brothers and one of them carried what was a less than two dollar gas offence for 12 years. The prison of the offence kept them apart for all those years and the weight of the offence drained them of the strength that they needed to be happy together.

I have learned to be quick to forgive others even when those that have hurt me haven’t asked to be forgiven. Forgiving them is not a benefit to them but it’s a blessing I release upon me. My forgiveness may not help them but it keeps me out of the prison of offence.

In the Monopoly game of life I refuse to go directly to jail over someone’s effort to offend me. I have received from the Lord a get out of jail free card, the card’s called my willingness to forgive.

Find a good church to attend where you can learn many great lessons on how to be free from your past and enjoy everyday life. God bless you all.