You know, someone said to me once that when we sincerely forgive, we only have to forgive once, but when we’re offended, we keep living the offence over and over in order to continue to perpetuate the hurt, staying locked in the loop of being offended, cinched fast into the whole mess by our unwillingness to let the situation go.
What is on the front page of your newspaper? Some people have pet peeves, things they find particularly annoying, and they are so annoyed, their list isn’t over on page 3 or 4, it’s on the front page so it’s among the first things always floating around in their head, everyday. We are irked by some of the subtlest things, so much so that they are allowed to define the way we conduct ourselves. Like, it irks me to no end when someone is late, chronically, consistently late, every time, and it doesn’t seem to bother them that they are late nor does it bother them that they are making me late for the next appointment.
We can’t keep trying to rearrange the circumstances, as best we remember them, in hopes of an old wound becoming something other than what it was. Nor, can we continue to re-re-re-re-play the event, reliving it all without being re-hurt and re-offended. At some point our mind has to stop negotiating with the past and simply acknowledge the scar. The wound did actually happen. The details may blur, the motives of others may remain opaque, but the fact of the injury does not change no matter how many times we turn it over in our hands. Continuing to polish it only keeps it raw.
Healing begins when we stop demanding a different story and start living the one we actually have. That does not mean pretending it never stung, or forcing a premature forgiveness that feels more like self-betrayal. It means refusing to let the old pain keep writing the next chapter. We can carry the memory without letting it drive. We can honor what it cost us without requiring the world to rewrite the invoice.
i’ve spent a majority of my Christian life being so wounded and so hurt that i couldn’t hear God, nor was i available for Him to change my heart. It’s almost as if the hurt and offense was more important to me than God was, and that is just wrong. Stop the bleeding. Hurts and offenses must be maintained in order for them to keep making “front page news”, which means we have to keep re-living them in order to keep them in the loop. It is paralyzing. Let them go back to latter pages, and give God-things permission to make front page news instead.
A man told me once, “When i’ve got an opinion, it’s really hard to hear God.” That’s such a simple thing to say, but it is also profound in the depth of implications. Many years later, the Lord has reminded me of those words and a little revelation has occurred. In addition to being so offended and hurt i couldn’t hear God, i’ve also been so opinionated and sure of my opinions, resulting in what little i could hear of Him was narrowed out just a little more. Eventually, it was like trying to have a conversation with someone through the crack in a door.
Luke 4:4, “And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” The phrase “by bread alone”, in this case, and in addition to a more physical meaning, i see it also as an idiom, meaning, we can’t live according to the affairs of this life and still be as close to the Lord as He intends. There is no real life in the affairs and tangles of this life. The word of God, whether from His mouth, or from the Bible, is life, and even when we’re out of water, food, and shelter, and our physical body is in peril dying, the word of God sustains us, forever. i read Psalm 23:2-3, as God’s heart and preferences towards me. He promises that He’ll make it so we can lie down in green pastures, and won’t leave us abandoned in barren places. He promises to lead us beside the still waters, which means God will bring us to places of refreshment, quiet, and without chaos. i call that a “shalom place”. The Lord then says He’ll restore our wounded thinking and feeling, and teach us how-to walk-in rightness of character for His name’s sake. Are you available to stop being so offended and hurt, letting God make you new, developing your gifts and talents as He has given you?
Stop being so offended you can’t hear God. Stop the bleeding and quit re-living those old hurts. i didn’t say forget forever, nor did i say to not deal with the real circumstances which got you wounded in the first place. i AM saying though … embrace the Lord and the truth of yourself, trust that God knows what He’s doing, and take those old hurts and offenses off of “front page news”, putting them back on page 5 or 6 where they belong.
Plant your feet, and set your face to take a posture of trust. Isaiah 61:1 portrays the Lord’s heart towards you in saying, “… he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.”
The Lord calls each of us to allow Him to comfort and validate us, even in the middle of a dark storm, even when we feel overtaken by fear or grief. Life may have worked to rob you of your God-given identity, abused you to the point you thought about hurting yourself, whispering in your ears that you are worthless, nothing better than a stain in clean air. But like Hagar in Genesis 16, the Lord is the One who sees you, looks after you, and provides for you, even when you didn’t know it was God who cared for you. You can know God’s healing and redemptive power. You can know His comfort and stand in your identity which He has given specifically to you. In the mean time, the Lord is going to ask you to remove your hurts and offenses from making constant “front page news”, and put them back several pages where they belong. Stop the bleeding.
What do you think?