Exercises That Will Help When You’re Offended

Several years ago, I was counseling a woman who had severe depression marked by suicidal tendencies. After a month of counseling, most of the depression had lifted. But every time we made progress, she would return to issues regarding her sister. She could not let go of the pain her sister had caused.

She refused to talk about it. She would get choked up, and the knot in the center of her brow tightened. Finally, after we had exhausted every avenue of getting past this hurt, I told her I didn’t think there was anything else I could do to help her.

I could see her struggle internally – and then she decided to tell me.

“She told everyone in the family I was always going to be fat!” As she said this, her skin became flushed, she knotted her hands together in the middle of her chest and she bent over in pain. This hurt so badly it even caused somatic symptoms. It had happened 27 years before, when the girls were teenagers.

John Bevere, in his book “The Bait of Satan” calls this “personal offense”. He believes that personal offense is the root cause of almost every relationship problem on the planet. I have taught on this truth in seminars and no one ever disagrees with it. Unfortunately, the solution most people recommend is to “gut it out” and “just forgive them.” I really wish it were that simple.

But it isn’t. You cannot  just will away the hurt others have caused you.

But I have found we can dig up the root reasons for why personal offense burrows into our soul and eats away at our peace of mind. Here are eight exercises (and one final healthy response) I recommend to my counseling clients when they struggle to let go of past pain and move forward into forgiveness.

1. Think of a time when you did something similar to the thing you are offended by. Part of the ache we experience comes from a sense of injustice. It is not fair that others lie to us, gossip about us, take advantage of our trust. It is fascinating though, if I ask people to think about a time recently when they did something similar to the way they have been mistreated … people often feel the internal knots start to loosen.

Most of us commit offenses on a semi-regular basis, but we often don’t see the troublesome nature of our actions. It is only when it is done to us that we get upset. As we go through the exercise of thinking how we have done the same thing, it gives us a measure of empathy for those who have sinned against us.

2. Ask God to show you how He sees the situation. Several years ago, a friend of mine made a list of things I needed to improve upon. It was not a pleasant list; many of the items called into question my intelligence and choice-making. I was deeply hurt by the list. After marinating in my inner irritation for several days, I asked God to show me how He saw the situation.

First, God pointed out how some of the list items were actually true. Second, he showed me how my friend had been feeling cut off from me and didn’t know how to express his own hurt. This gave me enough solace so I could forgive him and set up a meeting. During our time together, I expressed my regret at how I had cut him off recently. Then I proceeded to tell him how some of the items on the list were very true. I also ended by helping him see how he had gone beyond the truth in some items as well. We re-established our relationship at the end of that meeting. (By the way, I have his permission to share this story).

3. Ask yourself who the person who offended you reminds you of. If the same person keeps offending you, and especially if your reactions to these offenses seem more intense than they ought to be, ask yourself if this person reminds you of someone else you were hurt by in the past. Often, we have trouble letting go of a personal hurt because the person reminds us of a person or situation we have not forgiven years before.

4. Put yourself in their shoes and ask how they would want others to react to the situation. If we can begin to see how it probably looked from the point of view of the person who hurt us, we may perceive the incident differently. Perhaps what we interpreted as a criticism was just a simple question. Or maybe the attack was motivated by fear for our safety. Even if the offense was truly offensive, we may discern how it was motivated by something we had done. Seeing things from the other person’s perspective softens the blow.

5. Keep short accounts. Wherever possible (and it’s always possible) try to let go of the hurt before the end of that day. Each day you coddle an offense, the larger it grows. Think of it as a debt. The longer you take to pay off a debt, the more you will have to pay and the more onerous the burden.

6. If feasible, talk to the person who offended you. Don’t just assume they know what they did or how you reacted to it. I can’t even begin to count how many times couples have said to each other in counseling, “You know what you did”. The reality: they often don’t.

7. React in the Opposite Spirit. One of the great teachings found in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5-7) is this concept of giving people back the opposite of what they give you. If a person speaks hurtful words, speak a blessing. If they take something from you, give them even more. If they force you to do something you don’t want to do, help them in love. This will completely leverage your own soul and feed it while they witness you are not affected by their hurtful behavior.

Early in my walk with God, a man cheated me at a local business. The details are unimportant. I made plans to go to the local Better Business Bureau with the hope of causing him some kind of grief. My roommate in college offered to pray with me about it. As we prayed, I had a sense I was supposed to go into his shop and ask if I could pray a blessing over it (even though we both knew he had broken something of mine). When I went down there and asked him if I could pray, he mumbled that I could do whatever I wanted. So I prayed God’s blessing on his business. I left that place a free man.

8. Forgive and Release. When you have done some of the exercises above, then meditate on this question: Do I feel free now to forgive them? If you don’t, do some more exercises. But keep testing the water of your soul until the release comes.

9. Set boundaries that are safe and healthy. If a person keeps on hurting you, and if there is something you can do to prevent that hurt from happening, do so. The best medicine, after all, is preventative medicine. I have a friend whose husband had cheated on her four times. At one point, as she concluded he was going to keep doing this, she asked him to move out and get his own apartment. She told him not to tell her about any of his extra-marital relationships. In the end, she fought through her personal offense and decided not to divorce him. She often had him over for family dinners with her and the children.

So why did she ask him to move out? He had truly broken the marriage bonds between them and she didn’t want to keep hating him. If he stayed in the house while continuing to trample their marriage vows, the pain would not end. She truly forgave him, but she put a boundary so she didn’t have to keep looking at his offense.

The woman I mentioned at the beginning of the article did several of the exercises written here. What finally helped was going to God and asking how He saw her sister. God showed this woman that the sister was jealous because the mother favored the older sister. She got revenge by criticizing her sister in public. My client realized she had carried all this pain for years and had no idea what her mother’s favoritism must have done to her sister. Within a year, they had reconciled and now have a healthy adult relationship.

This works wonders if you’ll allow it.

Stop Reading the Bible Like a Cookbook

Being a “foodie” I like to peruse cookbook sites. My favorite is Punchfork which collects the offerings of a hundred websites and brings them together into a Pinterest format. Today, for instance, I am drooling over recipes for Spicy Salami sandwich with Olive Tapenade and French Onion tarts.

Selah.

I read Punchfork the same way I read cookbooks. Even though we may start reading a cookbook the first time from the front to the back, after that we jump around to the recipes we want to make. We don’t keep reading them in order.

I find people make a mistake if they read the Bible like a cookbook. They may have a subject they want to look up and they jump to a verse that contains a key word. Then they use that verse to justify (or sometimes change) their theological position. So why is this a mistake?

Let’s take an issue like the role of women in the Bible. If someone went through the Bible and looked up all the Bible said about women, it could get very confusing and even dangerous. One example should suffice. In the Old Testament, there were rules concerning how a woman was to act when she was having her monthly menstrual period. These rules were given in the context of regulations concerning the giving of the Mosaic Covenant between God and Israel. That context is extremely important; without it, these verses about women are at best meaningless, and at worst harmful and can be used to abuse women.

All of the regulations in the Mosaic Law are designed to point people to their role as the “set apart” people of God. Food laws, clothing laws, ceremonial laws and even sexual laws were laid down to show that Israel was a unique nation, called by God to carry the knowledge of God to the world. Read Galatians chapters 3-5 to get a full understanding of this.

But the story of God’s working in this world has moved past the Mosaic Covenant. To use verses from that covenant understanding and apply them to today is to read the Bible like a cookbook and not like the narrative of God’s actions with mankind as it truly is. The rule about menstrual bleeding is typical of this misreading of the Bible.

When Jesus was ministering in a town one day a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years came up behind and touched him secretly. She wanted to be healed from her bleeding. She also was reluctant to come up to him because her bleeding made her unclean by the standards of the Mosaic covenant. That is why she touched his cloak without anyone knowing it. But Jesus knew that power had gone out from him.

He looked around and asked “Who touched me”? The woman had done it secretly, because the Mosaic Law had said no one was to touch a woman while she was bleeding. Now, we do not know if this woman’s bleeding was gynecological, but it is safe to assume it was. She was therefore treated as an outcast.

But when she touched Jesus, she was healed. When he subsequently brought her before the crowd, he told the world she had been healed. Jesus, as a rabbi had the authority to declare a woman ceremonially clean. But in truth, this is a sign of the New Covenant. All who are fouled by sin can be cleansed by touching Jesus. To show this, His touch restored this woman…not just her body, but also her place in the community.

 

The coming of Jesus and the way he treated women altered our understanding of the role of women in the life of God’s people. The Old Testament understanding of women was not wrong; it was incomplete. Jesus brings the final story and that is the one we must adhere to.

The story of Jesus is the climax of the story of God with man. We are told in Hebrews 1 that Jesus is the fullest expression of God’s message to mankind:

Hebrews 1:1-3

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. ³ The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

My point is this: Not every page in the Bible carries the same weight. We read the entire Bible through the lens of Jesus. If Jesus declares women clean when they are going through the time of their period, then they are clean. He is the one who allowed Mary to sit as his feet and listen to his teaching. He is the one who addressed the woman at the well with dignity and as an equal. All of the Bible points to Jesus, who is God and who brings all of the other chapters into focus.

It’s like reading a mystery novel where you do not find out the key to the whole thing until the end. I was watching a movie called “The Spanish Prisoner”. The director, David Mamet, claimed that you could guess how the movie ended by the clues in the first ten minutes. I watched the movie three times and then (and only then) did the first ten minutes make sense. The Bible is the same way. You need to understand what Jesus teaches so that you can go back and make sense of the beginning of the Bible.

For instance, Jesus is one who tells us to put away our swords. So when the rest of the Bible contains violence and national warfare, we are supposed to read that in the context of what God was doing at that time. God was showing his abhorrence for how some nations were acting. God has one way to live and the nation of Israel was not to share a worldview with these other nations.

But the fullest expression of God in Jesus shows a man who would not defend himself, but rather counsels that we turn the other cheek.

If you read the Bible like a cookbook, you take a verse you like and apply it to fit your understanding of how God worked during times that are different than ours. That is monumentally dangerous. The Bible is the story of God’s actions among men. The heart of that story is God becoming a man. When you know the heart of the story, then you can go back and see what God was doing in the plot leading up to the heart of the story.

 

When God’s Core Values Collide

In his book, “Love Wins”, Rob Bell asks this pertinent question: “Since God does not desire that anyone perishes, and that all come to repentance, how can God allow anyone to go to Hell?” At another juncture he asks “God demands that we forgive those who sin against us. How then can God not forgive those who sin against Him?” In case those two questions are not enough food for thought, let me add a third he poses in the same chapter: “How can a loving God allow anyone to suffer forever for sins they commit temporarily?”

What Bell is doing is pitting God’s revealed core values against themselves. Without knowing it, Bell has laid out four of the key things that God values (we discuss these values in more depth in our last article on the subject back in September. Access it here).

• God’s demand that all sin be punished
• God’s desire that all people have complete freedom of choice
• God’s love for all He has created
• God’s plan to redeem mankind from sin by dying on the Cross

With his question, “Since God does not desire that anyone perishes, and that all come to repentance, how can God allow anyone to go to Hell?” the values of “God’s Plan” conflict with “God’s demand”.

With his question, “God demands that we forgive those who sin against us. How then can God not forgive those who sin against Him?” the values of “God’s plan” are laid out against our “Freedom of Choice”.

With his question  “How can a loving God allow anyone to suffer forever for sins they commit temporarily?” the “Love of God” faces down “God’s demand”.

As we said last time, all of God’s values are weighted. Each value carries a different weight. For instance, mankind is free to choose to sin or not to sin. Our wills are not free certainly (our wills are affected by circumstances, hormones, genetics, family, friends and the Tempter), but we can still choose to do right at any given time. Since I have freedom of Choice, this freedom carries more weight with God than his love. He loves me and desires I spend all of eternity with him. But according to the Bible, the very mention of Hell presupposes that God’s desire for us to freely choose Him always weighs heavier than his love for us. As parents, we see the necessity of this. We love our children. But there are times we must let them do as they will, even though their actions hurt us to the core. If we could give them a drug that would make our children obey us, we might think about it for awhile. But eventually we would return to the reality that we want them to choose the best way on their own.

God’s desire to allow us free will trumps his love for us.

But why Hell? Why doesn’t God just destroy us when we die if we don’t have faith in Him? As any person who has ever thought or contemplated running away from it all (even to the extreme of suicide), annihilation is not punishment; it is escape. If Hell is anything, it is the choice to walk away from God and to be forever alone. It is a punishment that God has revealed he does not want for us. But for Freedom of Choice to mean anything, there must be a reasonable choice. Our choice is to choose God or not to choose God. The consequence of choosing God is that we are cleansed and freed from sin’s power. The choice to not be with God is conscious separation from God and the knowledge and weight of our sin still upon us forever.

God’s demand that all sin be punished trumps our desire to escape any consequences.

Just one more thought at this juncture. God will certainly forgive all sins we have committed. He didn’t need to die on the Cross to forgive us. We don’t have to die on a cross to forgive others. But the sins we commit against each other still stand. In John 20, Jesus says, “If you do not forgive the sins of anyone, they are not forgiven”. God cannot forgive us for sins that we have committed against others. Someone has to be punished for those crimes. A judge can certainly drop charges for someone who has robbed from the judge. But he cannot let a criminal go free for robbing another person. Only Jesus’ death on the cross can pay for ALL sins, not just the sins we commit against God.

God’s death on the Cross satisfies God’s demand that all sin be punished. God’s death on the cross -and our putting faith in the Cross –  satisfies our free choice, God’s love, and all of the other core values of God. The Cross is where all the core values are displayed. And the Resurrection shows that Jesus’s sacrifice for sin was acceptable to the Judge of the Universe.

But if someone does not receive the effects of the Cross, then the other core values are played out. And the only way for those weighted values to be enacted is in Hell. So the logical choices are: Come to the Cross, or await eternity apart from God.

The Seasons of Passion – Spring

Two counseling sessions just hours apart convinced me I understand Passion poorly. I have always assumed “passion” was characterized by youthful exuberance, confidence and new ideas. And it is. But that is only one season of passion.

The first couple in my office were not there for counseling. I asked them to help me with a project I was working on. I wanted to interview two people who had been married for longer than 30  years. I could have interviewed my wife and I, but that seemed to lack objectivity. There are four chairs in my office: My office chair, two arm chairs and a love seat. This couple sat in the two arm chairs. They laughed a lot, corrected each other many times, finished the other’s sentences and by the end weren’t saying too many words. She flashed suggestive glances his way. He sucked in his belly like a freshman walking through the student lounge. I could tell, it was on for those two.

The second couple chose the love seat. They could have chosen one of the arm chairs considering how little space they took up. Married less than a year, their hands were frequently on each other’s faces, hair, hands and necks. They threw out little endearments and nicknames. I was impressed by how much they enjoyed each other.

Now which couple had passion? See: It is not as simple as age, enthusiasm and confidence.

Nature demonstrates clearly the purpose of Spring. Dormant seeds and fertile soil are bathed in sunlight, water and nutrients in adequate amounts. The DNA of the seed says “We’re going topside” and green abounds. Verdant and hungry, Spring exudes the promise of new life. Every life needs and craves these seasons. It is a mistake to think that Spring Passion has anything to do with age. Sometimes you have to rediscover passion after it has lain dormant for awhile. A man entering retirement needs to have a new vision and determination or he will be forever stuck in the Land of No Passion. A woman whose children are all gone from the home needs a Springtime passion again to propel her up from the basement of mediocrity. She has fulfilled the role of custodial parent. Springtime passion will move her into the next role.

Springtime passion can be seen in the life of Zaccheus.  In Luke 19, we are told his story. He was a despised tax collector (a redundant statement if there ever was one). He also was very short. He had spent years cheating most residents of his town out of money. The occupying Roman army gave him that right and enforced it for him. Jesus was the first new thing to come into his sorry existence for a long time. He heard the rumor that this radical Bible teacher, this healing, loving, miracle-working man was coming into town. A spark of passion swept his soul and he made up his mind to see Jesus. But he had an obstacle. The crowds would be there and he had two things working against him: He was short and could easily get swept up in a crowd; and most crowds would gladly sweep him away without a second thought.

Springtime passion says “I have to see Jesus”. In the biblical account, he climbs a huge sycamore-fig tree to wait in its branches. I can only assume his cadre of Roman guards watched the trunk of the tree. Sycamore-fig trees have 30–50 foot limbs. I can see him straining and wiggling out as far as he could to get the best view. When Jesus walked along he deliberately went right under where Zaccheus was sitting. “Zaccheus, come on down here” he said, “I must stay at your house tonight”. The short guy vaulted out of the tree and invited the Master to come to his house. He must have been pinching himself along the way at this newly found relationship. New love, new job, new school can all be like that. But in his zeal, he also picked up a counter-melody in the crowd. The whisperers along the way were wondering how Jesus could go and spend any time with “that sinner”. Perhaps a part of him wanted to spare himself and Jesus humiliation. He could have just called the dinner off.

Instead, spring-like passion compelled him to shout out: “Listen, here and now. If I have cheated any man out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jewish law required that a thief pay back a quarter more of everything he stole. Zaccheus turns that requirement on its head in his passion to cement his relationship with God’s son. You can just see everyone figuring out how much he owed them. This was going to cost him a lot.

Springtime passion says “money is no object”. Springtime passion says “Full speed ahead”. Springtime passion says “Any man who plows a field and looks back is not worthy of the Kingdom of heaven.”

Loren Cunningham, the founder of Youth With A Mission, had a vision many years ago of waves and waves from the ocean coming to shore. The Lord showed him these were thousands upon thousands of young people becoming missionaries and changing the face of the Church forever. At this writing, no other movement in this last century has been as successful at launching missionary careers as YWAM. I personally know several of the early leaders of the movement, and they all tell tales of great vision, moving passion, incredible faith and lasting truth. It was the springtime of their passion and it was good.

When is the last time you had a springtime passion? Jesus once told the “old fogey” Pharisees that a great follower of God is like a man who goes into his treasure house and brings out both old and new treasures. The Pharisees had the old treasures of the Law and the Prophets. But they did not possess a desire nor a stomach for new things that God was doing. Fine aged wine is nice, but so is new ale.

Go to God and ask Him to show you what new things He may be doing right now in your life. I rarely find a time where one or two new things aren’t being born.

But as satisfying and life-giving as Spring is, it may just pale when compared to the majesty of summertime passion.

Next time.

Boundary Violations – Part 2

Ken was hurt; again. His wife Vivian and her two friends had gone to the Mall and then out for a couple of hours of “girl time”. This was the third time this month they had spent the entire evening  together. For the second time, they had chosen Ken and Vivian’s “date night” to do it on. He was hurt and wanted to hurt in return.

Vivian finally came home about 11 p.m. Ken was waiting for her as he stewed in his frustration. He knew she would be exhausted the next morning when she had to get up at 5:30 for the morning commute into the city. That meant she would be tired the next few evenings. Any time he had hoped to spend snuggling and being affectionate together during the week was ruined.

But Vivian saw things very differently. For years, Ken had reserved three evenings a week for golf with his two high school pals. They did everything together and usually excluded their wives when they went out to the golf course. Afterwards, they would spend an hour or so in the clubhouse telling jokes and talking over the events of their lives. By the time Ken got home, he didn’t feel like talking and usually gave her leftovers. But as the men grew older, they slowly grew apart and Ken found himself at home more often. He didn’t really want to be there, so he just sat around and made Vivian be his entertainment. At first she soaked in the attention. But she realized that he would never be satisfied with the attention she gave him (he constantly complained about everything she did wrong). She decided that it would be better if she got away from him some evenings. Leslie and Joan were just the tonic she needed. They also loved to shop and drink tea. All Ken wanted to talk about was sports.

Ken and Vivian were ready that evening for a clash of major proportions. Ken had it planned in his mind. He would simply tell Vivian how he felt and allow her room to change her mind for him. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Later, when he was licking his wounds, he wondered why things had gone so wrong. He thought over the conversation they had when she came in the door:

Ken: “A little late for a mother of three to be coming in don’t you think?”

Viv: “Not really. I don’t have a staff meeting in the morning, so it’s not that late really.”

Ken: “Did you forget about our date night?”

Viv: “What date night are you referring to Ken?”

Ken: “The date night we said three years ago at the marriage retreat we would never violate. You violate me every time you go out when we’re supposed to spend the time together.”

Viv: “Oh, I see. Like last week’s date night. When we had to watch the World Series

A Government with Guts!

During the early 70s, a host of native Canadian kids were bussed into the schools of our British Columbia towns. They were leaving the Residential School System, a decadent system which tortured and manipulated these poor kids. The Government of Canada today issued an apology. It is very significant. It is a significant step toward healing that nation.

The prepared text of the apology Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered