With Friends Like These

 

Today I got to see a friend I hadn’t seen in a number of months. She told me about feeling like she was in high school because one friend found out that she had gone to lunch and shopping with another friend and wasn’t speaking to her because of it – these are ladies in their forties.

How often do we hear – usually from women and usually with a growl; “She didn’t even acknowledge me at church today.” “They went to lunch and didn’t invite me.” “I can’t believe her daughter went on that trip and didn’t tell my daughter she was going.” “She was in town for a wedding and didn’t even call me!” “I’m not speaking to her again until she apologizes!”

Apologizes for what? Often these things that leave us feeling slighted are nothing more than a preoccupation with another issue in the mind of the offender. If her daughter was invited to go away by someone else it may have been rude for her to include your daughter. Perhaps they didn’t visit because they already had seven other people to see while they’re in town for that wedding.

We often assume that we know a person’s motives for an action when perhaps we have no idea why they have done something – or failed to do something. We take the slight personally when it wasn’t at all intentional for the alleged offender. Is it something that even merits all this energy to be upset about? Usually not.

Mark 11:25 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

The biblical principle in this verse is to let these little slights go – while we’re still praying we’re to forgive the one we have something against. It doesn’t tell us to confront the person or to rebuke them in any way (which would usually only reveal our own pettiness). We’re just to let it go so that God will forgive us for the slights that we do to others.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “but I don’t slight others.” The truth of a slight is that the other person is rarely aware that they have slighted you or me. They are thinking of other matters or focused on someone else. Are we thinking that they should be thinking about us? The truth is that we’re no more a part of their constant thoughts than they are in ours, especially if there is some other important issue on their minds. Though we don’t say it when we feel slighted we’re acting like, “What could be more important than me?” Feeling slighted is a pride problem. In James 4:6 he tells us that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

What would happen in your world and mine if we were to begin to extend grace to others as God has to us? Perhaps the high road in these little slights is to always assume the best about the other person. Rarely is one of our friends intentionally slighting us. It is our pride that causes us to look at our own situation rather than what is happening in the life of a friend.

The Bible says always consider others more important than yourself. How could you and I practice that today so those slights would be slightly less insulting?