I wonder if God ever wishes he wasn’t God? He doesn’t of course but I tell you sometimes I wish I wasn’t human! It’s really hard at times, we are at a terrible disadvantage – God has created us to be such gregarious things and so we are incredibly vulnerable and at times insecure in our relationships.
How many times have you walked away from an encounter feeling hurt by a word out of place – or a particular look or some inappropriate body language? How many times have you let that brew and fester inside you for days or even weeks and then slandered the person who did it as a way of getting revenge? How many times have you turned quite reasonable people into demons over the slightest thing then stomped around in bile up to your knees splashing it over everyone who comes near you? Then, having done all the above, how many times did you discover that the offending incident was nothing more than an unfortunate slip with no particular guile attached to it whatsoever?
“What did he mean by that?”… “How dare he …..!” “Why did his eyes suddenly fall to the ground?” “Why did he walk away just at the point?” “Why wasn’t I invited?” Why wasn’t I mentioned?”
Sound familiar? The Devil absolutely relishes the opportunity to use your insecurity and sensitivity as ingredients for a nice dangerous brew of festering resentment, slander and division, he has even managed a good murder or two over the slightest remark at times. How he loves to convince you that you have a right to be loved and then make you feel that the rest of the human race has conspired to rob you of that right!
Its funny, but have you noticed that the Bible never tells you to march into a church and demand to be loved – It simply orders you to love others. I guess God knew that if you make a half reasonable stab at that you might get a bit in return. But if you do happen to miss out, he’s promised to make it up to 100 fold when you turn up in Heaven. That’s partly why they call it heaven, I guess.
Our Lord also knows how we are easily offended so he gave us a very wise command to deal with it; “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother”. Mat 18:15.
Go on! Tell him that you are hurting. I know you’ll feel a bit silly if he tells you he didn’t mean it but in the end its got to be a whole lot more effective than what you might be doing now, and its actually commanded of you.
The reason we don’t do it is very simple – pride – we like to give it other names but that is what it is. We hate the idea of admitting that we might be just a bit too human and easily offended or that we have misread the situation so we just let it brew and tough it out. We make all kinds of dire predictions about the way the other person will react without ever putting it to the test.
If Jesus is your Lord and not just your ticket to Heaven you will take him seriously but if you want to disobey him all that’s left for you is the Devil and he’s got a whole list of people for you to hate. If you don’t deal with your hurts in the way Jesus has instructed you, then all that is left is Satan’s approach.
Regards
Warren Hicks