Overlooking an Offense (HT: Tim Challies)
Tim Challies has a great post on overlooking that I encourage you to read:
His main points are:
1. Examine Yourself
2. Examine Yourself Again: Are You Right?
3. Determine the Importance
4. Look for Patterns
5. Be Sensitive
6. Seek Counsel
And I’ll close with his closing words (on seeking counsel) to tempt you to (hopefully) click on through:
“It may be valuable to seek the counsel of other mature Christians before pursuing confrontation. You will want to ensure that this is not simply an opportunity to gossip and vent, after which you will feel better and let the matter drop. But discreetly seeking wise counsel may be a very good way of ‘error-checking’ your assessment of the previous four steps.
If, after such an assessment of your own heart, the offender, and the offense, you still feel confrontation is necessary, you will want to pursue forgiveness and reconciliation in the way Jesus outlines in Matthew 18.
However, far more often than not, I think you will find it is wise to let the matter go. And here you will need to release your pride and outrage. You will need to be willing to let the matter well and truly drop, not telling others about it and not letting it fill your mind and outrage your heart. It is the glory of a man to overlook an offense; it is a foolish and prideful man who feels every little offense is worthy of confrontation.”