The Virtue of Insight

Sometimes I think "Yes! I am getting my life together!"  and then sometimes I get smacked in the face with an area of my life that needs to be addressed.  So when I came to a small two lined scripture in my Bible it smacked me right between the eyes.  Proverbs 19:11 says A person's insight gives him patience, and his virtue is to overlook and offense.  I really could stop here and let this scripture speak to you but I want to open up and be vulnerable with you because it may help you. 
The struggle of unforgiveness.
  I spent the first eighteen years of my life building walls around my tender little heart and God has spent the second half of my life tearing down the walls.  You see forgiveness is hard for me, not only in a sense that I can be stubborn but from a very early age I have known abuse and neglect, and my only way of coping was self protection.  My brother recently looked at me and said "You didn't know a kind man before you were eighteen did you?"  He was not wrong. As a child who was abused sexually, physically, emotionally and spiritually I didn't think their was a single man in the world who was kind, generous, thoughtful or nice. 
     Men used me from a very young age.  My earliest memories are of abuse or hiding from my sexual abusers, now add that onto a dad who abandoned me, a step dad that screamed all the time and would use his height as a mode of intimidation, a brother who used me as a punching bag among other things,  I learned to avoid men at all costs in my very home.  I didn't find solace in the church either, I found religion and a misogyny. Women are to be silent, they are to be used for their bodies to deliver babies, their talents to build up men, and they are to remain unseen, unheard, and submitted. Their idea of God's love was very deranged and as I was a female I was discarded and ignored.  Church leaders who should have spent time investing in my life spent time trying to beat down my mom, and also let me know 'my place in the church.'  I have been called a Jezebel many times and never an Abigail.  I learned by what was done to me, that God must hate me and no one was going to protect me.  I had to protect myself and play the part handed to me.  I am not telling you all this so that you can feel sorry for me I need you to know this so that you can understand the context that I put forgiveness in.  People throw around the word 'misogyny' right now but I can tell you as a woman who has experienced it first hand, misogyny makes you hate who you are at the very core of who God made you.  The assignment placed on my life was meant to kill me clear down to my identity.  I sit here not as a woman who is bitter but a woman who is whole, who is healing, and who is consistently striving to be more than my past, more than a product of what was done to me.  That is why for me this scripture is so important.  People want to destroy misogyny I want to see God heal it.  I know the anger, the bitterness, the pain, the sorrow, the hopelessness.  I wore them as armor, but I didn't know what freedom looked like till I met Jesus.
    The Virtue of insight.  
 In this scripture it says a persons insight gives him patience and his virtue is to overlook an offense.  As I dove into this scripture the word insight is actually translated as prudence and in the Bible prudence is wise instruction.  The very meaning of wise instruction is the discipline of prudence.  So insight is wise instruction disciplined, it is the practice of prudence daily applied to my life.  It is choosing wisdom over emotion and it allows my brain to create new pathways, to see things in a different light, and to allow understanding to come in.  This, practicing disciplined prudence allows patience to be birthed.  In my HCSB bible it says: Patience in this scripture means "slow to become angry."  Okay so lets break that down even more.  When we are angry we want to do something with it, anger is an emotion that wants action.  Whether it is physical, emotional, or spiritual we want action.  The bible says to not sin in your anger, so that implies that our anger can lead to us sinning.  For me anger was a protection mechanism to allowed me to open the door to bitterness, hate, and self protection.  I need you to see that offense doesn't ever hurt the other person it damages your soul, it eats away at your identity and it changes who you are.  In the same way that grabbing an offense and holding onto it changes you, so does grabbing onto insight and overlooking offenses. 
    When we have God's insight it allows us to have patience.  It allows us to not internalize or ingest the garbage someone else may be spewing.  It allows us to be healed.  I am not a man hater, I am not a doormat, I am the wife of an amazing man.  I can love my step son as we navigate as a family raising him into a man of God.  I love my daughters and raise them to hear a different voice than the one I had growing up.  I love God, I love my step dad, my brother, and even have been building a relationship with my father who abandoned me.  I love the church and believe in her with all my heart.  She is the vehicle of hope, who is Jesus, and I love meeting and knowing pastors who truly love God and love ALL of their people.  Even those pastors who said awful things to me as a little girl, a teenage girl, and even an adult woman,  I can love them with the love of Christ.  I am not saying it is easy, its called a discipline for a reason and is God asking you to grow here? 
Challenge 
This is a challenge for me today and I hope it is one for you as well.  Their has been an area of my life where I don't overlook the offense, and yes it goes very deep, but God is challenging me to let go, to give him consent to be a part of the situation and to let me let it go.  You see I use offense as a wall to not let people in, shocker I know!  For the last thirty three years of my life, I have learned that when I invite God into a situation, let go of the offense, He does something miraculous.  Whether he restores a relationship or not he gives peace and understanding which is the supernatural ability to overlook an offense.  The word virtue means 'adornment or glory."  We are God's light bearers and when we choose, because it is a choice, to let go or build a wall.  When we choose to intentionally not think on it anymore, speak words of life over it, proclaim God's word rather than facts, we are inviting God to create a miracle.  That is my challenge for you today, invite God into your daily disciplines, practice prudence, which will help you to become slow to anger, and your virtue or adornment will be to overlook an offense.  I am praying for you right now in Jesus name.