Daily Devotionals
Daily Devotional: Proverbs 19:11-15
Prov 19:11-15
11 Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. 12 A king’s wrath is like the growling of a lion, but his favor is like dew on the grass. 13 A foolish son is ruin to his father, and a wife’s quarreling is a continual dripping of rain. 14 House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord. 15 Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger.
1 Thess 4:9-12
Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
When we wear our feelings on our shoulders, we are asking for problems. When we are easily offended, we will often be offended. People are not going to cater to our whims or wishes nor will they always put our feelings ahead of their own. It may be that people do things that are hateful to us on purpose, or it may be that we just see it that way and they actually meant no harm or may not even know that they have offended us by their words or behavior.
We can learn to overlook these things and then we will find that we are almost never offended nor have our feelings hurt. Even when we know that someone has hurt us on purpose, we can choose to forgive them and let it go. If they did it on purpose, the best way for us to get back at them is to not be hurt, to forgive them, and then to just show them how much we love them in spite of their offense.
This sounds a lot like the attitude of Jesus and his Father. When we hurt them and when we were going against them, they still loved us enough to send Jesus to die for our offense and then to just forgive us as though we had never done them wrong. When we imitate Jesus, it gives us freedom, it gives us peace of mind, and it rids us of all anger, malice, and bitterness. We have joy in the Lord.
O Lord, help me be big enough to overlook what others do or say that might be offensive to me or that might make me feel bad about myself. Help me put my trust in you and in your grace, not in what others think or say and certainly not in what I can accomplish on my own. Use me to help others, even those that I might not really even like. Give me wisdom to make friends of all my enemies. Lord, be with those who are sick, who are taking treatments, and those who are seeking answers to their medical problems. I humbly pray in the name of Jesus.
Robert
