Overlooking a wrong =your glory

Keeping score = your loss

By Babs Kincaid

Overlooking a wrong equals your Glory and keeping score equals your loss! What a challenging concept! That’s the beauty and mastermind of God’s perspective rather than mine or yours! Check out the timeless words of Solomon: “The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, and his glory is to overlook a transgression.” Proverbs 19:11 According to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible this Hebrew word for glory (8597) means “beauty, bravery, honor, and majesty.” Notice God gives credit for bravery for this divine behavior! According to Chuck Smith’s commentary on this verse: “It is just much better to say, ‘Oh, let it go.” Why do we have such a hard time letting an offense go? Listen to what the profound word of God says: “Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even you may have against one another. Forgive as the LORD has forgiven you.” Colossians 3:13 If I am God’s ambassador, I need to live like it right?

We can all testify how extremely difficult this is to overlook bad behavior! Our flesh gives out a war cry and our Spirit cries mercy! There is a real tug-of-war within us! According to Wikipedia, “every Fourth of July, two California towns separated by an ocean channel, Stinson Beach, California and Bolinas, California gather to compete for an annual tug-of-war. Can you imagine what that must look like? That trivia is for those of you who like a visual! Lol! Needless to say, a tug-of-war can get ugly and someone always wins and someone always loses!

Do you ever wonder why we choose to keep score for games and are toldnot to keep score in relationships?  The reason is simple.  In games, there is a winner and a loser, but in relationships, the goal is harmony and not loss. God has asked us not to judge but to forgive.  God does not set us up to be winners or losers but to be equal servants in Him as winning the greatest prize, LOVE.  God is LOVE. He has commanded us to forgive up to seventy-seven times.  (Matthew 18:21-22 (NIV). In other words, I will need to relinquish the idea of keeping score in my relationships and focus on working on improving my love walk. By overlooking offenses, I line up my heart with God’s!

Once I had an experience working with a woman who had a deep resentment against me.  I was powerless over her refusal to confront me directly so our relationship could be restored.  I was powerless over her inability to forgive. I was powerless over her negative embellishment of the situation.  I was powerless over her unkind words and her drama queen exaggeration of the situation. I was powerless over her lack of forgiveness even though she professed to be a Christian. I was powerless over her desire to be right rather than to be well. I was powerless over her refusal to choose to confront me and seek reconciliation. The good news is that because of Jesus, I did not have to operate in self-righteousness, but I could choose to operate in grace. I confronted her in love, and I was powerless over her denial. Since I have choices, I chose to forgive and to operate in love and let God deal with her scorekeeping vendetta.  I choose to continue praying, overlooking, forgiving and loving her. God gave me the wisdom to connect with her. One day I suggested a horse ministry that might help her autistic child and her heart began to soften. God had opened a door for us to connect on a positive ground and her resentment began to fade. When I left that job, she gave me a very expensive gift and a hug! I guess she threw away her score card! That’s why overlooking a wrong often involves been brave by refusing to give up on Christ’s love!

I grew up with a dad who had mastered the skill of scorekeeping to my great loss. He kept a running tabulation of my offenses on a daily basis! He was an angry alcoholic who choose me as the scapegoat for his bad behavior. One day he asked me to clean my bathroom. When he inspected it he found one of my hairs had accidentally fallen into the sink.  He came unglued with rage and cited all my offenses of the past year! What a nightmare for me! His scorekeeping turned out to be a huge loss for me and our family!

Scorekeeping or judgment is a character defect that leads to defeat in any one’s life.  Judgment is a negative mindset that causes one person to feel superior about themselves at the expense of another person.  Mercy and forgiveness are God’s remedy for those destructive behaviors that miss the mark. It is wise for us to deal with our resentments so they will not own us. The bottom line is our Savior has redeemed our failing scorecard to read forgiven and restored.  It was for freedom that Christ set us free. We can choose to let go, and let God do the scorekeeping! The payoff for us is freedom and glory beloved!

Wow verse: “Whoever covers an offense seeks love” Proverbs 17:9