Glorious Oversight

Choose to love—rather than hate
Choose to smile—rather than frown
Choose to build—rather than destroy
Choose to persevere—rather than quit
Choose to praise—rather than gossip
Choose to heal—rather than wound
Choose to give—rather than grasp
Choose to act—rather than delay
Choose to forgive—rather than curse
Choose to pray—rather than despair. 
God always gives his very best to those who leave the choice with him.
~James Hudson Taylor (1832-1905)

Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. A king’s wrath is like the growling of a lion, but his favor is like dew on the grass. A foolish son is ruin to his father, and a wife’s quarreling is a continual dripping of rain. House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.
~ from Proverbs 19

Oh beloved, it is true. People are willing, able, and ready to offend. In addition to their propensity to bring bad against us, they are ready to interpret just about anything we do as an offense against them.

For bigger than our egos, there rages also a spiritual battle around us. The very one (and his minions) who were cast from heaven, now work to slander the One who threw them out. And one of the best ways they can do it, is to bring division amongst those who only truly function when they are one with Him – and each other.

So, if the evil one can get people to attempt to act separate from their Power Source, and their fellow brethren, he can indeed bring us to ruin and despair in this plane. We can become unable to move in any sort of productive way.

But division and offense are not a necessary part of the believer’s existence. In fact, they are not ever necessary. For within us now flow rivers of living water. They flow up and through and out of us in waves. These waves are under pressure. And just as the glory of G_d is the overpressure of His Presence, the flow of Him out of us is now our glory. It washes bad away; it does not take it in.

And for us to be offended requires a conscious shift in who we are. We actually have to cooperate with the evil one. Instead of letting Jesus and His Spirit work out through us, it is necessary for us to shut off the Flow, and look to our own selfish desires.  Now, we can surely find hurt in the flesh – for nothing good dwells there. But, even in doing this we are looking to something that we should be reckoning dead. And why would we want to re-examine a corpse anyway?

Further, in looking to an offense so as to make it part of me, requires me to also make a temporal shift that is totally unnecessary. Successfully walking the path He has set before me, necessarily includes looking to Him and the future glory He has in store for me. And any offense that might come my way is something that is in my past. It is in ground that has already been covered.

Can we see it? Yeah, there are going to be people who try to hurt us.  There are going to be people who fail us. And those people will most likely be people very close to us. They will be our brothers and friends and spouses and co-workers. However, the only pain relevant to us, should be theirs. Any pain they put into our lives is simply irrelevant.  To register it has WAY too high a cost. We have to literally take our eyes off of Jesus, and stifle the flow of His goodness to get any “enjoyment” from our misery.

So, hopefully the question is both evident and rhetorical. Why would we want to do that?  

There is a choice before us beloved. Will we live in strength and joy and Love and freedom? Or, won’t we? Tonight is your night. Let the offense go. Simply keep your eyes on Him and let His Life flow out of you in its glorious overpressure of goodness.