Don’t be Offended

Galatians 6:2,3 Help each other with your troubles. When you do this, you are obeying the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to do this, you are only fooling yourself.

When others behave badly, it’s so easy for us to take offence. In fact, in a world dominated more and more by a sense of entitlement, taking offence is becoming the “go-to” response.

But let’s just stop and think about the times when we’ve behaved badly, you and I. What caused us to do that? Well, it could be any number of things. Maybe something triggered a hurt from the past, touching a sensitive place in our hearts – a scar perhaps.

Or perhaps we were feeling pressured, as we so often are, so we snapped. Or maybe it’s just that we’re flawed people who make mistakes.

And those reasons apply not just to you and me, but also to those around us who, from time to time, behave badly. That go-to response of taking offence is looking less and less tenable, isn’t it? Perhaps there’s another way.

Galatians 6:2,3 Help each other with your troubles. When you do this, you are obeying the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to do this, you are only fooling yourself.

So, we can take offence or we can help them with their troubles – their triggers, their inadequacies, their failings – by suspending judgement and showing empathy.

Look, most people aren’t bad people. Their bad behaviour is invariably driven by something else. What’s bad is taking the high ground by judging them, by taking offence. That’s bad.

As someone once said, you don’t have to operate with any great malice to do them harm. The absence of empathy and understanding is more than sufficient to achieve that.

Help them with their troubles. If you think you’re too important to do that, you’re only fooling yourself.

That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.