People usually admire and look up to “the boss,” which is a good thing; we are to give respect and honor to whom it is due. It helps us serve people properly if we really respect and admire those over us. Being around them a lot, however, can cause us to begin to look at them as “Good ole Joe” or “My buddy Charlie,” and something happens in the heart that eventually kills the relationship. Respect is a key in good relationships, and I feel the lack of it is one of the main reasons that relationships are destroyed.
We should not allow ourselves to become too familiar with the things and people in our lives that are now special. Some things I own are very special to me; I treat them as valuable, taking precaution that they encounter no harm. How we view things determines how we will treat them. Even more, the people in our lives who are special to us we should treat with great respect, handle them carefully, be appreciative, thanking God for their friendship. Don’t let what is special become mundane. To keep from taking each other for granted, we can practice remembering how precious people are and focus on thankfulness for their presence in our lives.
It may even be healthy to think about how it would affect our lives if we lost certain persons’ presence or friendship. What if So-and-so and So-and-so were no longer in my life? What if suddenly they were gone? It could help us keep in the forefront of our thinking how vital they are and assist us in treating them as such. I have done this with my husband, Dave. I have thought about how it would change my life if he suddenly was not in it. He is very valuable to me, and I intend to treat him with respect and honor.
SET BOUNDARIES ON TEASING
I am aware of a relationship between two men who really enjoyed one another that was ruined through excessive joking. The relationship began with tremendous respect and admiration; they were both fun-loving guys who enjoyed teasing people. As they became more and more familiar with one another, the teasing took on a more tense nature. At first, their jesting was cute and funny, but it soon became a point of rivalry, and I noticed they used the pretense of “I’m joking” to make crude comments to each another when they were upset.
They should have shown respect for each other by practicing honest confrontation during a disagreement, but instead one would make a comment to the other that he intended to bring correction, but he did it under the guise of joking. Then the other one would respond with similar statements. This bantering would go back and forth, all, of course, under the mask of “I’m joking.” When someone’s character, physical appearance, or family members are the brunt of “the joke,” it ceases to be funny.
The comments became more and more rude and crude until these two men began to disrespect each other and lost the desire to have a relationship. I certainly did not enjoy being around them; their way of dealing with one another was uncomfortable. I could tell there was underlying strife. I could tell that the “joking” was not really as funny as they were pretending it was. The Bible says in Ephesians 5:4 that we are to rid ourselves of all “coarse jesting, which [is] not fitting or becoming,” because it causes problems between people that in turn grieve the Holy Spirit of God.
They could have teased one another and enjoyed it, but only with boundaries. Even something like having fun must have boundaries, or it becomes an evil thing. In other words, we need to know how far to go and when to stop. We can set boundaries on ourselves and never put someone else in a position of having to enforce his own boundaries.
I know within myself when I am spending too much, talking too much, working too hard, and not getting enough rest. I also know that when teasing becomes rude, it has gone too far. At that point, I need to apologize and stay within God-ordained boundaries, or I may ruin an otherwise great relationship.
Familiarity is often the root cause of coarse jesting. When we don’t know someone really well, we are more careful what we say, but it seems the better we know an individual, the more the “real us” pops out and the importance we place on good manners diminishes. It is better to remain respectful in all relationships and always to treat everyone with courtesy.
FOLLOW THE HOLY SPIRIT
Our goal is to let the Holy Spirit of God lead us into what will produce good fruit in our lives, such as discipline, which is another way of saying we have boundaries in our lives.
Without boundaries, everything is out of control. God wants to be in control, but He won’t force us. We discipline ourselves to follow Him, which means we learn to live within boundaries.
We cannot follow the Holy Spirit and also follow people. We will either be God-pleasers or people-pleasers. If we establish boundaries for others as well as ourselves, we are on the pathway to being led by God’s Spirit.
If you really think about it, life is filled with boundaries. A bedtime is a boundary. It says, “I will stay up until this time and no later.” That boundary allows us to get good sleep and feel healthy the following day; it provides much needed energy. If we frequently ignore our boundaries in this area, it will adversely affect our health.
Stop signs and traffic lights are boundaries, as well as speed-limit signs and the yellow lines in the middle of the road. These boundaries are set in place for our safety.
Don’t look at boundaries as something to be despised, but as something that provides safety and security for all of us. If boundary is a word you are not familiar with, I suggest you learn all you can in this area. I highly recommend Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend’s book titled Boundaries. It was very helpful to me as well as several people I know. Without boundaries, we will never enjoy peace in our lives.
If you have made a decision to pursue peace, then establishing and maintaining boundaries must become a priority to you. Boundaries will protect you from being easily offended, which is the next way to keep your peace.
PEACEKEEPER #19
Let Go of Offenses
We must learn to pick our battles. There are simply too many conflicts in life to fight them all. We will have many major things to deal with, so the least we can do is practice letting go of all the little things that people do that irritate us. As we saw in the chapter on esteeming others, God may lead us to confront people for misconduct, or even for crossing our set boundaries, but there will be many little issues that we need to just ignore.
We are not alone in our dilemma; even the twelve disciples whom Jesus personally trained had relationship problems with each other. Peter asked Jesus how many times he must forgive his brother for the same offense (see Matthew 18:21-22). This indicates that someone, maybe one of the other disciples, continually irritated Peter in some way. It may have been as simple as a personality conflict or an irksome habit, but whatever it was, Satan used it to steal Peter’s peace.
Jesus told him to forgive seventy times seven, which meant the perfect number of times. However many times it takes to remain in peace throughout our lives, that’s how many times we are to overlook the offenses of others.
People should enter into close relationships with their eyes wide open, realizing there will be things about people that bother them. After we enter these relationships, we will have to close our eyes to many things. It will not do any good to concentrate on faults, because some of them may never go away. Some things change with people as the years go by, and others seem to remain forever.
“Love covers a multitude of sins [forgives and disregards the offenses of others]” (1 Peter 4:8). The Bible instructs us to make allowances for one another (see Ephesians 4:2). In other words, we are to allow people to be less than perfect.
I personally respond much better to people who allow me to be human than I do to those who expect me to be divine (perfect). I hate the pressure of trying to please someone in all things. It makes me uneasy and on edge, and I feel as if I must tiptoe around lest I offend in some minor thing. If I want to reap relationships that allow me to be myself, I must sow them.
I was recently speaking with my administrative assistant. We discussed the fact that it is impossible to spend as much time togeth
er as we do and never see each other’s imperfect side. We must be generous with letting things go. That means we don’t need to make a big deal out of every error and many times don’t even need to mention them at all.
I have noticed in myself and others that even when we are willing to forgive, we want the person we are forgiving to know that we are forgiving him or her. We usually want to at least mention it.
YOU WILL BE TESTED EVERY DAY
Why is it so hard to completely ignore offenses? We want to mention the fact that we overlooked their obnoxious behaviors so the people who offend us do not think they can treat us improperly and get away with it—it is a type of self-protection. But God wants us to trust Him to protect us as well as to heal us from every hurt and emotional wound, every day.
I wonder how weary we would be at the end of each day if Godmentioned every tiny thing we do wrong. He does deal with us, but I am quite sure He also overlooks a lot of things. If people are corrected too much, it can discourage them and break their spirits.
We should form a habit of dealing only with what God Himself prompts us to address, not just everything we feel like confronting, or every little thing that bothers us. I am the type of person who would not be inclined to let anybody get away with anything.
I don’t like feeling someone is taking advantage of me, partially because I was abused in my childhood and partially because I am human, and none of us embraces disrespect. In the past, I was quick to tell everyone his or her faults, but I have learned that is not pleasing to God.
Just as we want others to give us mercy, we must give it to them. We reap what we sow—nothing more or less. Even God may withhold His mercy from us if we are unwilling to give mercy to others.
We are to be Peacemakers, not Peace Breakers. Always remember that it takes two people to fight. If you respond with harsh words, you will stir up anger, but if you respond to an offensive statement with “a soft answer,” you will “turn away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1). Someone has said that anger is one letter away from danger. Just add a d, which could well represent devil, in front of anger, and you see the trouble with rage.
I believe that our lives can be full of peace if we simply decide to do what is right in every situation that comes along. There is a right and a wrong way to handle the storms of life. But until I was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to learn about the power that is available to me as a believer to do the right thing, I never handled offenses right.
Jesus’ economy is upside down from what the world teaches us. He says that we can have peace in the midst of the storm. Now just think about how awesome that would be, if no matter what happened, you could remain full of peace.
You can keep your peace in an unexpected traffic jam. You can keep your peace when you have to wait in the grocery store line, while the person in front of you doesn’t have any prices on his products, the clerk runs out of cash-register tape, and she’s new, and she doesn’t know what she’s doing anyway, and she is fumbling around trying to get the tape in the register, and you are in the biggest rush you have faced all week.
Even then, you can keep from losing your peace, from getting a headache or an ulcer, and from blowing your whole witness by acting like a fool. Even then, you can just stay steady because you have the power living in you to stay in peace.
Jesus said that He gives us power even to “trample upon serpents and scorpions, and [physical and mental strength and ability] over all the power that the enemy [possesses]” (Luke 10:19). He promised that nothing will harm us in any way. If we have the power over the enemy, surely we can overlook the offenses of others. He gives us the energy we need to treat people right.
Understand that every time you are tempted to be offended and upset, your faith is being tried. The Word says,
[You should] be exceedingly glad on this account, though now for a little while you may be distressed by trials and suffer temptations, so that [the genuineness] of your faith may be tested, [your faith] which is infinitely more precious than the perishable gold which is tested and purified by fire. [This proving of your faith is intended] to redound to [your] praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6-7)
Peter was saying, “Don’t be amazed at the fiery trials that you go through, because they are taking place to test your quality.” Every relationship test is an opportunity to glorify the work of God in you as a testimony to those watching you endure the offense.
Why do you think that in school you had to take final exams before passing to the next grade? You didn’t graduate to the next level just because you showed up at school every day. You got a diploma only when you took the final exams and showed that you could answer the questions.
The Bible says that God will never allow more to come on us than what we can bear. But with every temptation, He also provides the way out. Remember, the only time we will not find the strength of God in our lives to do what is before us is if we’re trying to do something that God never told us to do. He never told us to hold offenses against others. In fact, forgiveness is a very big issue with God.
Jesus said,
For if you forgive people their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. (Matthew 6:14-15)
DON’T ASK YOURSELF FOR ADVICE
Solomon said that he took counsel with his own mind, and in essence he concluded that it was like “searching after wind” (see Ecclesiastes 1:17). Our minds say to be upset if someone offends us, but God says to let it go.
I often share a teaching that I call “Shake It Off,” which is based on the time Paul was on the island of Malta. He was helping some people build a fire when a poisonous serpent crawled out and attached itself to his hand. At first, when the people saw it they thought that he must be wicked to have such an evil thing happen to him. They watched, waiting for him to fall over dead.
But the Bible says that Paul simply “shook it off.”
We can learn so much from that. When somebody offends or rejects us, we need to see it as a bite from Satan and just shake it off. If we hear that somebody has been talking about us, we need to shake it off. When we are sitting in a traffic jam and begin to feel upset, we need to let it go.
Frustration won’t stop on its own. It keeps raising the pressure higher and higher, as if somebody is tightening the screws on our nerves. But when you feel that happening, you can literally shake it off and refuse to give in to it. Sometimes we make things bigger than they need to be; we blow them out of proportion. We can choose to let offenses go before they take root in us and cause serious problems.
Jesus told the disciples that if they entered towns that didn’t receive them, they should just go to the next town. He told them to shake the dust off of their feet and move on. He didn’t want the disciples to dwell on the rejection they had experienced; He wanted them to stay focused on sharing their testimony of His working in their lives.
Likewise, as we follow the Spirit, we can shake off offenses and hold on to our peace. When others see that we are able to remain calm even when “the serpent” bites us, they will want to know where that peace is coming from in our lives.
When we are in a state of upset, we cannot hear from God clearly. The Bible promises us that God will lead us and walk us out of our troubles, but we cannot be led by the Spirit if we are offended and in a dither.
We can’t get away from the storms of life, or the temptation to be irritated at someone. But we can respond to offenses by saying, “God, You are merciful, and You are good. And I am going to put my confidence in You until this storm passes over” (see Psalm 57:1). We cannot prevent feeling negative emotions, but we can learn to manage them. We can trust God to give us grace to act godly ev
en in an ungodly situation.
One day we were looking for a parking place, and a car was backing out, so Dave waited so he could get the spot. He had his blinker on, clearly showing that he was waiting to park. Well, a guy behind us on a bicycle was very put out because we had stopped. He was ranting and raving, and he pulled around Dave, but we held our peace and smiled at him. But while this guy was railing on us, somebody else took our parking place!
I can remember when that kind of thing might have really irritated us, but we’ve been through so many trials that we could shrug and say, “Bless you, hope you enjoy that parking place!” And we found another one. We’ve learned not to let offensive people steal our joy anymore. You might say that we have learned not to let offensive people offend us.
What good does it do to get upset at someone who takes your parking place? You can get all mad and bothered, but the other person will still have your spot. And you probably will never see that offensive person again as long as you live, so why let it steal your peace, even for a few minutes?
As soon as you lose your peace, the devil wins. If getting you offended works once, believe me, he will set you up with the same opportunity over and over.
Later, Dave said that person who took our place actually helped us. We didn’t know that we were in the wrong block, and if we had parked there we would have been far from where we wanted to go. What Satan means for our harm, God intends for our good. Doing what is right leads to peace and joy.
Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost are a progression. If we don’t know who we are in Christ, then we won’t realize that we have His strength in us to do the right thing. Then we won’t have peace, and if we don’t have peace, we won’t have joy. So if you have lost your joy, you need to back all the way up and find out where it was that you lost your peace, and then do what is right in that situation.