Status Updates From Bitterness: The Root That P...

“To "believe all things"(1 Corinthians 13) is to put the best possible interpretation on a person's behavior. Suppose your offender does something that could be viewed in 10 different ways, 9 of which are bad. Love will reject the 9 and accept the 1. In the absence of hard evidence to the contrary, Love will go out of its way to imagine a good interpretation of the matter before seriously considering a bad one.”

“Rather than thinking only of what you've lost, think about how God may be using your loss to benefit you. Rather than thinking about how miserable you are, ponder how you can make someone else happy. Rather than worrying about what will happen to you tomorrow, figure out how you can be a blessing to someone today. Instead of grumbling and complaining, praise God for all the things He has done for you.”

“Forgiveness focuses not on the offender's sin but on how God (in His wisdom and goodness) may be using the offense for His glory. We should assume that God is more concerned about our response to the offense than the offense itself. (Sometimes an offense is God's way of revealing to us a need in our offender's life so that we might pray for (or even minister to) him.)”