Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense.
Being offended is inevitable. Living offended is a choice. – Craig Groeschel.
Let that sink in for a moment. Imagine we have been given a choice to be offended or not be offended. What would you choose? I suspect it might be a hard choice for some. Letting go of hurt and pride and replacing it with forgiveness and grace is a tough assignment.
The reality is we do have a choice. As the quote states, there are always going to be people who offend us. The decision we all need to make is: will we choose to let it dictate our life? We can listen to others’ opinions without having to agree. We can choose to love despite our differences.
Think about it this way. When our children are bullied, do we want them to bully the person back? I hope the answer is no. We want our children to be strong and confident but not at the expense of hurting someone the way they were hurt. What good would come from that?
We can learn a lot from our parent handbook. It is not easy for our children to love in the midst of hurt anymore than it is for us. But our Heavenly Father expects just that. It takes a lot of practice and encouragement from God, but He is more than able to help us with the hard choice. All we need to do is ask.
