let those who suffer … commit their souls to Him ... as to a faithful Creator

We were talking last day of the negative power that our taking offense has, on our lives. We can thwart this by learning the habit of letting go before it starts. In the amplified Bible's version of James 1:19 we read “Let every man be quick to hear [a ready listener], slow to speak, slow to take offense and to get angry”. It's good advice, and it's also good to not let the anger get a hold of you. But what do you do when this advice is too late, or the offense too deep?

Let me start by admitting that it is not easy at times to let go. But as I have said before, when I hold onto offenses I am the one who suffers the most, me and those I love (see “Don't get mad, get even and poison yourself and those you love” January 2011). And the ease of letting go does not seem to depend on how serious the offense is. At least it has not with me. Be the offense big or little, if I let it, it will go round and round and round in my mind, and stir up my heart.

As always we get our perspective (and our lives) back on track, by responding to Bible truth, allowing God to deal with the problem and/or show us our part in His way of dealing with it. “I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You” (Psalm 119:11). And when we are offended we are in grave danger of sinning against Him! In the end all sin is against God (see the context of Psalm 51:4). I am not of course responsible for the wrong others do to me, but I am responsible for wrong reactions to the wrong done! And with all of us, the tendency when offended, is for us to strut around self-righteously, to seek ways to take revenge, or to nurse and feed our hurt and anger. And these things are always destructive.

So firstly, I need to read again (for example) “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay” (Romans 12:19). There is a similar thought here as in the title of the post from 1 Peter 4:19. God is faithful, He is just, He will sort it out if we let Him and if we give Him space. This may not be immediate, and it may not be in the way our revenge thinking wants Him to, but His ways are always best. That is why we need to commit our ways to Him, and to not take things out of His hand. Part of taking the shield of faith (Ephesians 4:16) is to believe that His ways are indeed best. When we reject the devil's ways like this, we extinguish his fiery darts!

Secondly, we never have all the facts, and so we will never be able to fully discern what is going on. In a trial, the defense and the prosecution take biased positions. In this way both sides of the coin are presented to an impartial jury. But if we act as prosecution, Judge and Executioner, we will not be impartial, we will not be just, it is not within our nature.

Jesus was aware of all of this when He told the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18: 23-35). The NIV estimates the debt of the first servant at ten million dollars. The master forgave him the debt, but then this same servant, who was owed an estimated twenty dollars by another man, refused to forgive him. Hard as it may sound (and sometimes it is very hard), we are being told that when we don't forgive, we are like the unforgiving servant. Again hard as it might sound, the parable ends with the lesson “This is how my Heavenly Father will treat you unless you each forgive your brother from your heart” (verse 35).

The unforgiving servant was blind to the injustice and the inconsistency of his actions. Similarly most of the time we don't see or feel the depth of our own offenses against God. I believe it would crush us if we saw and understood, as God does, even a small fraction of our sin and selfishness. It is His mercy that we do not. But the occasions when I have caught a glimpse of my sin, have been enough for me. I am not talking about some guilt trip someone else laid on me, I am talking about the genuine conviction of the Holy Spirit (John 16:8). We have no idea. Its part of our denial and self defense. We cannot live 24/7 under heavy conviction. The scriptures tell us that on that day (the day we will be called to give an account of our lives) the unrepentant will feel this conviction so heavily that they will call out for the rocks to fall on them (Revelation 6:16). Unless we repent, we will be among them.

There are some practical things we can do, in this process of letting go. And many times it is a process. We have been given powerful weapons which, when we learn to use them, will allow us to “bring every thought captive to the obedience to Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-6). So firstly, we can take authority over out thought life, in Jesus name. I do it all the time. Secondly as part of “committing our souls to our Faithful God”, we can “pour out our complaint before Him” (Psalm 142:2). A big part of my way of doing this, is to journal. Often is it in the form of a letter. But this needs to be but one stage of pouring it out to Him. I then need to spread what I have written out before the Lord (for the principle see 2 Kings 19:14).

This writing letters can be both good or bad. Usually the letter I write is written to the one who offended me, not to the Lord. Writing the letter to the offended one is bad in this sense, “talking” to the offender in our hearts and minds is part of being stuck, and is dangerous in the sense that it can finish up stirring us up even more. For me though, this form of journaling is just part of the process. What getting it out does, is to help me stop it from going round and round in my mind. As long as it is still only in my mind, I might forget the “brilliance” of what I want to say to this person :). But if this is all I do, it is not good.

It is good if I then go on to “spread it out before the Lord,” committing my soul and my cause to Him. I then leave it for a couple of days (most times). This way I have probably sent one in a hundred of the letters I have written. Two or three days later I usually, through this process, have my thought life, and my emotions under control, and thus be more willing to let God deal with it. There needs to be closure though. Some recommend burning (printing and burning and expunging it from your computer). This symbolic purging can be very powerful in helping to put it in the past.

Most of the one in a hundred letters I sent, I was supposed to send, but not all of them. As I say it can be hard to let go. Most of the mistakes were because I was too impatient, and acted too soon. After a while you learn what is, and is not of Him. In the beginning, you will likely only realize you should not have sent it, when it's too late! It's all part of learning to hear His voice (John 10:4 – see also September 4, 2010), and choosing to walk in obedience. Learning to discern what is of the Lord is a process, and takes practice. One of the things we need to do, if we send such a letter, is to make sure that we are speaking truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). If we cannot say what we need to say in love, we are not yet ready to send it.

Another problem about letting go, is that it is very easy to give it over to the Lord, and them (almost) immediately take it back again. As soon as we realize that we have done this, we need to give it back to Him, and to do this over and over until it sticks. Like all new habits, it can take some time to get into the grove of it. In the past obsessive thought patterns were something of a stronghold with me, and even now I can find myself needing to read the sort of thing I am writing today to remind me of both the principles and the help that is available.

One of the good things about the difficulties that come my way these days, is that they drive me back to Him. I have learned to take the time to wrestle things through: to wrestle back into the peace, back into the joy, back into closeness to Him (see Philippians 4:4-9). I find it helps to worship Him, to think about how Jesus dealt with opposition, hypocrisy and betrayal. I want to be like Him, He is so wise and kind, and He tells it like it is when it is necessary. I need, His peace and courage and wisdom and love. Grant it Lord. In Jesus' Name.