The Lord has been very gracious to me over the last few weeks. He's been searching my heart for what isn't good there an has brought to my attention a concept foreign to me until now. It's called "picking up offenses".
You see, I am very protective of the people I love and when one of them is hurt, I hurt with them. This is healthy and this post is not intended to minimize hurt in any way, but only to call sin what it is, sin, so that we can live better and joyous lives.
There are two instances in my own life that the Lord pointed out to me. Both instances not only prevented me from being able to love my friends and their spouses fully, but kept me from being able to walk with them through some pretty tough stuff.
In the first instance, I felt hurt for my friend's husband, because in my not-so-humble opinion, she was dishonoring him. Because I felt this way (my own tainted perspective), I "picked up the offense" on his behalf, even though he did not feel offended. This took away my capability of loving her when she was hurting, and it took away God's ability to use me to show her His love through me and speak into her life through me. In the end, it hurt us both greatly and threatened to drive us apart. In His grace, God showed me that it was sin to be offended on the husband's behalf, because it was unforgiveness and judgements against her. The offense was not mine to carry. I sought her forgiveness and we were both healed from my sin.
The second instance, I was offended on my friend's behalf for something her husband did to her. The husband's sin was against God and his wife, so while it was good and healthy for me to hurt alongside her, it was sin to take her offense as my own because it became unforgiveness and judgements and resentment against him.
When a sin happens, it is first against God, then against certain people. For example, in a divorce situation, the sin is against God, the spouses and the children (and the following generations i.e. grand and greatgrandchildren). Let's say a close family friend feels the destructive power of the divorce and is very hurt. This hurt can take the person two ways: 1) and opportunity to be an ambassador of reconciliation or 2) into anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, judgements, resentment and dissention. If the friend chooses to take sides, speak negatively, or spread rumors/gossip, they are taking the path of sin. If they speak only truth congruent to the word of God, they are allowing their hurt to propel them to action in love with the goal of reconciliation.
Jesus demonstates this action beautifully in the story of the woman at the well. He told her that she had had 5 husbands and that she was currently living with another man she wasn't married. Even though her sin was against her husband and God, and though it certainly crushed his heart, Jesus did not rebuke her in anger, shun her out of judgment, or gossip about her. Instead He loved her. He encouraged her to go be healed and be reconciled.
That is what true love, God's love, does. It pushes us toward reconciliation. Love does not "process hurt" by rejection, it does not judge in anger, it does not reject with silence. Love encourages us to reconcile and make right when we fail.
I have seen the effects of picking up an offense in my own circumstance. During my husband and I's separation, a close family member became offended on my behalf. Though my husband I and were reconciled, the offense remained on their shoulders. It came out just recently in words to myself and my husband individually. It came out in words like "I don't know how you can trust him" to me, and to my husband "I don't know if you've changed or not". That person still carries an offense, a sin that wasn't even against them, and it carries very real consequences in the form of division between them and us and an inability to love us and support us.
Picking up the offenses (defined as sins that aren't against you) is a sin in of itself. It carries the consequence of division and destruction of your relatonships. Be an ambassador of reconciliation. Evaluate your responses to others, especially when you are hurt by them, to make sure that you are not sinning against them. And if you are the one that was sinned against, be sure you aren't sinning in return by judging the person that sinned against you, reacting in anger, rejecting with silence, or discussing the sin with those not involved (gossip). If you are sinned against, you too have the choice to act towards reconciliation, or act toward division.
