Growing up on a 100-acre cattle and horse farm, I learned early on how to put in a fence post.
First you needed gloves to protect your hands from blisters and thorny-pieces of wood. Then you’d take the post-hole digger and begin at the spot designated for the fence post. As a weakling like me, you jumped on the top of the post-hole digger. Jumping over and over and over, you would work the post-hole digger down. Then carefully, you would open the post-hole digger and hold the dirt you have displaced and set it outside and beside the hole.
Then you begin again, until the hole is the right depth in the earth. You pick up the post (usually a very heavy piece of timber, sometimes covered in creosote) and place it in the hole. Then with a careful hand and a level, you begin to place the dirt back in the hole, tamping it down with your boot, as you go, and keeping the post level.
In the hot Texas sun, this was some kind of work–really a two person job! The creosote would heat up and exude a smell that became familiar. It reminded me of the railroad tracks we used to walk on as kids. A strong smell and a good memory combine to make the smell a likable one–even when it really isn’t.
When the posts are up and the fence railings nailed in place, you can keep a lot of strong animals out or in, depending upon your goal. It was hard work that really made me proud, as a young, teen-aged girl.
So I began to think about this yesterday, a fence equals hard work and a lot of effort to build. So does offense. Yes ma’am, so does offense.
How often do we put on our gloves to build up offense? How much work and effort do we put into offense? Can you smell offense in your life today–has it become associated in your mind with something justifiable, so that the bad smell has grown on you?
WELL, what do we do with it?
I remember a plane ride I took a few years ago with a new friend. We were both Christians and shared much of our lives in the short two hour trip. It was a special time. My friend has discerning nature. Yes indeed, she is quite discerning…
She said to me, “I can see that you struggle with being easily offended.”
What does one do with that? Well the easily offended one could get offended, right? But I didn’t, I took her words to heart. And every once in awhile I replay them in my mind. Then I hold up those words before the LORD and say, “See this Father? This is offense. I turn it over to You.”
Granted there are justifiable things that happen to offend us. I have a list of them…justified offenses. People I have trusted being untrustworthy–hurts and pains are all of them–and forgiveness is vital for our lives. But the LORD asks me to hand it over to Him…for my good…’cause He loves me and sees the hole in me that is beginning to reek of creosote.
It says in the Merriam-Webster dictionary that an offense is a cause or occasion of sin. Both the offender sins and the offended then has an occasion to sin.
What do we do with offense? Where do we begin?
- Well Job says it like this in Job 13:23:
How many wrongs and sins have I committed? Show me my offense and my sin.
- So we ask the LORD to show us, where have we been offending and where have we been offended. Then we progress on in the situation…we cover the offenses (tamp it down with your boot, if you will) and turn away from them:
A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense. Proverbs 19:11
Because he considers all the offenses he has committed and turns away from them, he will surely live; he will not die.
Ezekiel 18:28
- Then we simply turn to the LORD, as He says:
“I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”
Isaiah 44:22
The thing about it is this–and this is my rendition of the wisdom from my friend on the plane–carrying around fences is burdensome. There is no need to carry them around. Stop white-washing and lay down your timbers, friends. Place them lovingly at your Jesus’ feet. He knows what it is to offend and to be offended. He is wise about it.
No, Jesus didn’t walk to please others. There are just some things in this journey of life that WILL bring offense to others. If it’s sin, confess it to God and to them. If it’s of their own making, then you must walk on from it, as Jesus did.
When He bore the offense of our sins on the cross, He was despised for our sake. But for the JOY set before Him, He endured the offense of the cross–rejected for our sakes.
Jesus HAS redeemed you! Now, take off your gloves. Lay down your posts. Throw off the smell and be free of a fence for Heaven’s sake (and I mean that literally). And since you have your boot’s on, take a spin of praise with me! He has set us free. We are free indeed!
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