A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.
Proverbs 19:11
We’ve all experienced it. You’re on your computer and a program, usually from Microsoft Office, encounters a problem and has to close. And then a little message appears on your screen:
Do you want to ignore this problem or report it?
I vividly remember a time when this happened to me in college. I was working on a project, and the program I was using crashed. And then the message appeared: ignore or report? I got angry and wanted to report the problem. My roommate, who knew way more about computers than I ever will, stopped me and said:
“What’s the point in reporting it? It’s not worth your time. You’re still going to be angry about it after you’ve pushed that button. It’s not going to fix what happened to you. And it’s probably not even going to fix the problem for the future. Just click ignore.”
He was right. And recently, I’ve come to see that this same line of wisdom is true about many of the wrongs that are done to us in our lives.
When an offense comes in your life, you have a choice to either click ignore or report. To let it go or hold onto it. Our first instinct is usually to report it. But here’s what you need to know before you do that. Reporting the problem may not fix the problem. It probably won’t even make you feel better. All you’re doing is giving oxygen to an offense that should have been taken off life support long ago.
Now there are definitely times where you need to address things. There are serious offenses that should be reported. And I don’t just mean to the people who did them to you. But to the police. Immediately. Things like abuse, rape, or serious wrongs along the same lines.
But there are also offenses that we need to overlook. Wrongs that in the grand scheme of our lives aren’t really worth the time and energy it will take to address them. I’d probably argue that 80% of the things that are done to us fall into this category. And we have a choice with them. We can either waste our time and report them or ignore them and move on.
The more you refuse to be offended, the less power you give to the wrong people and the wrong offenses. Forgiveness is strength. So someone hurt you…failed you…turned on you…I dare you to release them from the offense. Click ignore.
It will set YOU free.
