“A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense” (19:11). Are you presently feeling frustrated and angry with another person? If so, let me ask you this: Do you ever do what that other person is doing? Do you ever harbour similar attitudes? It may be that there is not as much difference between you and the other person than you might like to imagine. Moreover, you may have offended God in greater ways than that person has offended you. All this does not invalidate your hardship. Nor does it justify the other person. But it should give you pause for sober reflection. And it should inspire patience in you. God endures your faults with great patience. Should you not then endure the faults of others with patience? Are you really in a position to feel shocked at the faults and offenses of that other person? Have you never shocked yourself by your lack of faith and obedience to God? Haven’t you given God cause to give up on you? And yet he certainly has not. Nor does he condemn you. Why then would you ‘write that person off’ when you yourself might have been written off by God but were not. Yes, as the proverb says, it is indeed the wise person’s glory to overlook an offense, because the wise acknowledge what God has done for them. In this way the wise also develop patience. May we all have that kind of wisdom.
Is there anyone that you need to forgive and show grace to?
Read Proverbs 19:11-19
