Recently I was angry. Like, very angry. It takes a lot for me to get angry but this time it was a sudden flash of anger in retaliation to what someone else had said. At that point in time I said 'Only God Himself' can speak to me-and speak to me He did.
I sat down and was wresting with my flesh, my conscience but most importantly the spirit man within me. You know when you want to drown it out and feign ignorance but God is like 'Hold up!' Well, that was me, In exasperation I was like:
" Why must I always be the bigger person? It's not everyday be mature, I'm feeling really petty right about now"
Lol.
Well the response I received from God was way more than I ever expected. He simply said,
"If you're tired of being the 'bigger' person get ready to die".
Woah.
Hold Up.
Wait.
It suddenly dawned on me that for as long as you live, people will offend you and , surprise surprise, you will offend others. If you no longer want that then you're really asking to no longer be alive. Most importantly I was convicted in the statement of 'being the bigger person'. Where have we got this silly idea from? It reeks of a strange sense of pride and misplaced 'mercy' as if we 'decided' to forgive the other person because we are much more 'mature' than them.
Truth is, nobody can really lay claim to being the bigger person because God Himself is the 'biggest person' out here by sending His only son to live amongst flesh in order to set us free from sin. God has forgiven us of so many sins that we have committed yet we deem ourselves 'good' when we 'become the bigger person'.
If you find yourself apologising first most of the time then thank God for the grace to do that; it's certainly not because of you but rather the Spirit in you. In any case we should not be keeping records of wrongs and we should forgive then move on.
Ultimately what made me wise up is that my relationship with God is too precious to allow anger and unforgiveness to get in the way of it. We have Kingdom business to take care of and each time we dwell on unforgiveness we give the enemy more time than he will ever deserve.
This will not be the first time that I will be blogging on such a topic but I guess it is because offences are a major part of life and how we deal with it is so important.
When we realise that the only person we can ever change is the figure in the mirror it will put many things in perspective. You are only responsible for your actions and nobody else's. I cannot say that it will get easier with time but grace will make it so and one thing that you can never have is too much grace.
So here is to doing away with being the 'bigger' person and instead becoming the person that God has called us to be and that is to be Christ like!
x