Very few things are more heartbreaking than when the relationship with a friend is broken. The pain and heartache that we go through are more than some people can bear. When you drill down to the source of the problem you can usually find two culprits, one person was offended or gossiped about another. King Solomon shows us how to overlook the offense and preserve the friendship.
Proverbs 17:9
“Whoever conceals an offense promotes love, but whoever gossips about it separates friends.”
Look Past It
At first glance, this may seem a little off. Whoever conceals an offense? Sound illegal but what Solomon is saying is whoever overlooks an offense promotes love. Face it, we are all human, and we are going to offend people with our words or actions, and it is going to happen to us. True friends know how to move past those offenses by forgiving the person and choosing to love them.
Motivated by Love
When we choose to remain hurt and punish the person who hurt us by retaliating or ignoring them it only makes the matter worse. Most of the time the offense happened by accident or misunderstanding and unravels out of control because we add the drama of our feelings to it. Everything we do should be motivated by love, especially when it comes to dealing with someone who has hurt us. Even if the offense was intentional, our response should always be out of love and to overlook it.
Remain Silent
Another way that we conceal an offense is by remaining silent when the offense occurs. What truly separates friends is the talk that happens after the offense. Instead of trying to understand what really happened we start talking to others to get them on our side. We exaggerate what we say and add in speculation about the other person intentions and before you know and all-out war is happening.
Nip it in the Bud
The goal is to preserve the friendship. In rare occasions that is not possible, but most of the