You’ve been offended.  Wronged, insulted, or deliberately snubbed.  You have every right to feel offended and to take offense.

Now let’s up the ante.  Suppose you are wronged by a parent, a boss or pastor – someone who clearly has authority over you.  You rightfully feel deeply hurt, disappointed and/or angry.  The question at this point is simply how to handle the offense.   How do you overcome the offense before the offense overcomes you?

Our modern world might give you this mixture of ideas:

1. Confront the offender
2. Write a letter or send an e-mail to put the facts on the table
3. Tell your friends and gain support of your position and then expose the facts

While any of these strategies might work, they also have huge potential to backfire.  Many times, the person who caused the offense will become defensive – claiming they didn’t do anything wrong, so now the offense grows even worse.  Pretty soon, instead of having a discussion about putting things right, everyone gets focused on who is not wrong.  We defend ourselves and say things like, “I never said,” or “I didn’t know,” or “I cannot believe…”

Then the relationship deteriorates.  Instead of being in right relationship and focusing on who is right, we focus on knowing our rights – and pointing the finger at who is wrong.  Offense often lingers for lifetimes and can end in divorce, broken relationships and lost friendships.

What if there was a better choice!  Let’s consider an alternative inside the story of David and Saul.  Saul was the first king of Israel and at the onset of a major battle against the Philistines, a giant named Goliath taunted the Israeli army.  Faced with a hopeless situation, Saul offered his daughter’s hand in marriage to the man who would defeat Goliath.  A teenaged shepherd named David killed Goliath with a slingshot and became a hero, a favored son-in-law to the king and later a famous general in Saul’s army.

But within a few years, all of David’s fortunes changed when the people of Israel chanted, “Saul has killed his thousands and David his ten-thousands.”  King Saul became enraged with jealousy, took David’s wife from him and chased David through the barren wilderness.  ^{1 Samuel 8}

We see that David repeatedly put his life on the line for Saul, and then Saul got so angry that he literally tried to hunt David down and kill him.  Talk about reasons for David to take offense.

Amazingly, under two separate occasions, David had opportunities to kill Saul, end the chase, and become the next king of Israel.   But David “refused to kill God’s anointed king.”  Even though David spent 14 years hiding in caves and living on the run, he simply refused to take offense.

What an amazing choice!  Later, when David heard that King Saul had been killed in a fierce battle with the Philistines, you can only imagine what David did…  He cried out of grief.  He actually cried for the man who had tried to kill him.

One thousand years later, as Jesus was being crucified, he too cried out saying, “Forgive them, Father, for they don’t know what they are doing.”  Incredibly, not only did Jesus forgive, but in the midst of his misery, Jesus actually prayed for the people who had put him on the cross.

Both David and Jesus refused to take offense.  Perhaps this is one reason that God called David a man after his own heart.  What examples that God has given us to follow!  And when we do, guess what happens?  We, like David; we, like Jesus, are the winners.

We win because we get to live in peace.  We win because we sleep better.  We win because we get to say goodbye to angst, entitlement and icky thoughts that weight us down.  Yes, we win.  God knows us so well – and wants us to win.  That’s why he spells out the winning recipe so clearly, and so many times in his book.  We win when we go through life smiling instead of frowning.

What if we start winning, right now, by saying a prayer together.

Dear Jesus, I have been hurt and you know what I’m feeling.  My emotions range from sad, to angry, to confused and worried and these thoughts feel overwhelming at times.  Thank you, Jesus, for understanding me, and for forgiving me for all the times that I, myself, have fallen short.   Jesus, in the power of your mighty name, I ask you to forgive the people who have offended me.  I also ask you to help me to forgive them, the same way you have forgiven me.

My friends, there is no doubt that forgiving can be hard, especially when we are emotionally charged.   But the only reason you are listening to this message is because in your heart of hearts, you want to forgive and want to be filled with God’s love and peace.  You are already on the road to forgiving and smiling again!

We’d like to come along side to help you learn more about forgiving, more about not taking offense, with a free MP3 audiobook or PDF of Why Wait to Be Happy, where we expose Satan’s lies and discover God’s solutions for defeating them.   Jesus paid a big price for you to live inside his peace and his abundance, and he wants you to get what he paid for.