Proverbs 19:11 describes the practice of overlooking a personal offense as a virtuous thing. We often consider exacting our justice upon one who has wronged us as best path toward self-satisfaction. This character quality of being able to overlook an offense is no small thing. Our inability to overlook an offense and to become bitter or angry when we feel we have been wronged is due to our flesh and our union with Christ. Overlooking an offense is not forgetting about personal slight. It is not allowing sin to grow. It is not being cowardly or avoiding conflict. If someone thinks that, then they need to describe Christ’s demeanor at the cross. Overlooking an offense is realizing that there is something more important, some greater issue at steak than my personal justice, vendetta, or pain. It is Christ-like discernment through Divine Grace to be able to regard the growth and needs of others above my own desires and needs. To be willing to not give someone what they deserve, because in that moment I have an opportunity to show them mercy and grace, and give them what they truly need. You see the Gospel is magnified when we are able to see another with compassion and give them grace rather than pain-even when they deserve it.
Trevin Wax wrote a fascinating article providing an example of this grace in action in the history of our nation. I clipped a portion of it posting it here while encouraging you to read the rest of it over at his blog. Kingdom People -Overlooking an Offense
Snubbing the Future President
An important patent case was coming to Chicago, and George Harding, a patent specialist for a distinguished law firm in Philadelphia, considered Lincoln for the position. After receiving an initial sum of money from the firm, Lincoln got to work preparing the legal arguments for the case.
Shortly thereafter, the case was transferred to Cincinnati. The law firm decided to utilize Edwin Stanton instead, but never communicated the change to Lincoln. For months, Lincoln continued working on the case. In late September, he set out for Cincinnati with his legal brief in hand. Kearns describes his encounter with Stanton and Harding:
Arriving at the Burnet House where all the lawyers were lodged, he encountered Harding and Stanton as they left for the court… Lincoln introduced himself and proposed, “Let’s go up in a gang.”
At this point, Stanton drew Harding aside and whispered, “Why did you bring that d____d long armed Ape here… he does not know any thing and can do you no good.” With that, Stanton and Harding turned from Lincoln and continued to court their own.
The snubbing went beyond the initial insult. Kearns continues:
“In the days that followed, Stanton “managed to make it plain to Lincoln” that he was expected to remove himself from the case. Lincoln did withdraw, though he remained in Cincinnati to hear the arguments. Harding never opened Lincoln’s manuscript, “so sure that it would be only trash.” Throughout that week, though Lincoln ate at the same hotel, Harding and Stanton never asked him to join them for a meal, or accompany them to or from court. When Judge John McLean hosted a dinner for the lawyers on both sides, Lincoln was not invited.”
It’s no wonder that Lincoln took the humiliating circumstances personally. Upon leaving Ohio, he wrote a friend:
“In reply to your request for me to come again I must say to you I never expect to be in Cincinnati again. I have nothing against the city, but things have so happened here as to make it undesirable for me ever to return here.”
(read the rest of this article at http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2012/10/02/the-power-of-overlooking-an-offense/?comments#comments. . .
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