Studio52Seven

There are two things that most of us love to speak against but secretly crave: sugar and offense. Sugar, we sneak into our breakfast cereal, pancakes, and morning coffee disguised as monk fruit blends, agave nectar, or maple syrup. For offense, we have nobler labels: “speaking my truth,” “setting boundaries,” or the knock-out line, “I just find it interesting that…”

We hate to think that we are offended. We sense that our calm is ruffled when we acknowledge offense. “I am not angry, I’m just sad,” we explain. But we feel offended more often than we would like to acknowledge.

Strip away the hashtags validating offense on social media as something the enlightened do and the therapist’s confirmatory opinion dressed up as intervention, and offense humps stark-naked, primitive. It’s what happens when my pain points collide with your actions, or inaction. The sting of embarrassment, the bruise to my ego, the ache of unmet expectations—all rise, demanding satisfaction and validation. And because I am, I feel entitled—building a full-blown legal case in the courtroom of my mind, where I am both plaintiff and judge. “You are guilty, and the sentence is eternal exile from my good graces,” I rule, and the need for that ruling is existential.

offense. …It’s what happens when my pain points collide with your actions, or inaction. The sting of embarrassment, the bruise to my ego, the ache of unmet expectations—all rise, demanding satisfaction and validation.

Pain, Anger, and the Tomato

Pain does not disguise itself. Prick yourself with a thorn in the bush, and you don’t build a conspiracy theory against the bush. You may yell in pain, maybe do a little pain dance, holding the affected part of the body, and probably mutter some curses at the bush – if you are given to taking full advantage of your fundamental human rights as far as freedom of speech is concerned. But that ends there. The next time, chances are that you will most likely avoid that bush. Pain is blunt, instant, and frank. Anger, on the other hand, is pain headed to a court. It doesn’t just want acknowledgment or a vent; it wants a trial. It whispers, “This isn’t only hurt. This is injustice.” Like with the flip of a light switch, the courtroom flares up – raging hot.

Anger is what we have when the same prick of a thorn comes from a human instead of a bush. When I say with a boiling heart that “I can’t take that!” even though the actual sensation of pain has ceased, it is the temperament of my skin that is talking. With the thorn bush, it was a crocodile hide, with another human, it becomes the skin of an overripe tomato. Sensitive, touchy, tender, easily bruised. I feel things deeply. Sensitivity makes listening to Mozart beautiful, but it brews inconvenience when someone cuts me off in traffic or dismisses something I value. Sensitivity allows me to taste life’s sweetness, but it also magnifies the slightest scratch into a mortal wound. It makes the inconceivable and personally nauseating ideas of the talking head on TV irrelevant and almost amusing, but if the same were from my wife, it would take a week-long court session to know how we stand. Sensitivity is one of the special ingredients that turns pain into anger.

Escalating to Offense

A thorn will always prick us, and someone will always say something, even if unintentionally, that will hurt our pride. What follows is important, and the devil does not blink to take advantage of those moments.

Paul warns in Ephesians 4:26 & 27, “In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” In the first part, he was quoting Psalm 4:4, and he captures the fact that once in a while, a thorn will prick us, or, like some translations put it, “When you are troubled,….” However, he warns, “do not give the devil a foothold.” The pain that got a face is the anger, and that can stop there. But when the anger lingers and festers, it turns to offense. The process that makes that happen is allowing the devil to put his foot in the door. All he is looking for is to incite distractions to lower our guard so that he can find access.

Sometimes it feels as though we have a moral duty to take offense. My daughter, responding to an earlier draft of this, remarked that letting a reason for offense slide “does make one feel lonely and unprotected at times.” She was right. There’s a peculiar ache in feeling denied validation; as if the absence of an apology hurts more than the original wound itself. Yet, the very nature of offense reveals that there is nothing objective or universal about it. To feel offended is, ultimately, a choice. Even the craving for validation – that second layer of pain – is still a subjective response.

In Western cultures, where the leaning is towards individualism, expressing outrage is often framed as self-respect or moral courage. In collectivist cultures, like Asia and Africa, where honor and shame are big issues, maintaining harmony may temper outrage. According to a study published in the National Library of Science, the US population boasts of 7%–11% of people who experience significant anger issues; Great Dallas LifeSkills reports that 65% of a study population say that the world is becoming an angrier place; and a USA traffic related study reports that 96% of drivers admit to road rage and also being at the receiving end of the same.

A casual globe-trotting observer will tell you that what constitutes offense in one place may leave people unfazed in another. Cultural contexts shape perception, revealing that offense is as much about our expectations as about reality. An interracial couple had a fall-out because the man took some biscuits that he bought for his wife without her express permission. He could not understand why such would offend her. Even within the same culture, individual preferences can create room for offense.

The Economics of Offense

In the legal world, they call it “ambulance chasing.” Emotionally, we could call it “offense chasing.” One slight, one careless word, one cold look, and our minds draft complaints, subpoenas, and closing arguments. Every perceived wrongdoing becomes a case: cashing in on sympathy, moral superiority, or social capital.

Seated in our hearts lies a curious craving: to paint someone else guilty and absolve ourselves. Entitlement and offense dance together. One whispers, “I deserve recognition,” the other shouts, “See! I’ve been wronged!” Together, they create drama, combustible yet largely invisible. In a global legal economy that festers with civil lawsuits and damages claims, your insurance agents and lawyers will teach you how to dodge the bullet. No, they school you on how to feign injury and stay offended. Truth is subjective, and as long as you feel offended, then you are. You are free to feel entitled because you are entitled. A huge percentage of public advertisements: TV adverts and billboards in some parts of the world are for those who may want to claim personal damages. The system is rigged to make forgiveness alien. And in some cases, we throw in the supposedly dispassionate “It’s nothing personal.” I can get rich by being offended.

My Need for Resilience

Pain is a constant in our world, and offense from a festering anger is our hard-wired desire for “justice.” And since that is so, resilience cannot be just a trait. It should be part of our survival kit. Life bumps into our tomato skins constantly. Without resilience, every minor insult is bound to become a festering wound.

Isabel Allende writes, “We all have an unexpected reserve of strength inside that emerges when life puts us to the test.” Isabel may have spoken as a human, and the place of sheer will-power to contain our emotions. And she might be right. Psalm 119:165, however, admonishes, “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.” That’s resilience cast as more than just grit. It is anchored peace that is only possible for those who love the law of the Lord. Like a flexible bamboo, it sways, absorbing the force, then rising again.

Resilience is cultivated through humility, patience, and the refusal to let anger degenerate to offense and define us. Without it, “offended” becomes our identity. With it, offense is a passing storm in a bamboo field.

Closing the Door to the Devil

The devil invests a premium to have access to our personal space and our peace and he does not respect boundaries. The very reason we need to guard our hearts and relationships against strife.

Hebrews 12:14-15 says, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.”

That is a call to action to put the conflict away. Cessation of war is a choice, and the book of Hebrews tells us that we have to “follow peace” to obtain it. The imagery is that of a ravaging beast persistently pushing at the door. The only option we have is to proactively keep that door shut.

“But you do not know what that guy did?” you scream. There is grace, Titus 2:11-12 tells us, enabling us to subdue that urge to feel offended. Our mandate is not to frustrate that grace (Galatians 2:21).

Forbear and Forgive

Another set of tools we have to prevent that thorn prick turning to offense is to choose to forbear. To bear the pain even before it happens and to give grace before it is needed. For Jesus, He did it “while we were yet sinners” (Romans 5:8). A commitment to make allowance in my heart for the people close to me helps me to allow them to be authentic, knowing that something they might do might potentially be displeasing.

Of course, sometimes, words ooze out, despite our decision to forbear. Therefore, Proverbs 10:19 reminds us, “In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise.” Post guards at your lips and corners of your heart to keep those words and actions from forcing their way through. At the point when the whole world would want Him to speak up and validate Himself, it is said of Jesus, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).

Play the Fool Sometimes

“Do I look like a fool to you?” You may remember when you said something like that, or someone who did. The pain of feeling taken for a ride, used, oppressed, and cheated – and you have the power to show that you are not a fool; you are not dumb, like it is said of Jesus above – can be crushing. Paul wondered at the Corinthian Christians (1 Cor. 6:7), “(Why) can’t (you) allow yourselves to be cheated?” Paul, what planet are you from?

In Matthew 17:27, Jesus tells Peter, “But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.” He was choosing peace instead of screaming from across his side of the fence, “See you in court!”

Because we validate the feeling of offense as part of our fundamental human right, we not only anticipate and welcome it, but it makes ideas like “nothing shall offend them” (Psalm 119:165) an other-worldly concept. Though the system requires a level of offense and anger for someone to be counted as normal, the system is also quick to flash the reg flag once a threshold is reached. Once that point is crossed, offense and anger then become behavioral syndromes instead of sin, and medication and therapy instead of repentance are prescribed. When Cain was overtaken by anger, God warned him that sin was at the door. (Gen. 4:6-7). God did not recommend a therapy session. He called what was happening and what it could lead to, sin. Jesus defined murder as when we call someone, fool stemming from our anger (Matt. 5:21-22).

As we conclude, I hope you did not pick offense that this is a long read. Secondly, it is good to remind ourselves that offense is unavoidable and the people we’re close to: friends, family, and colleagues, will step on our toes. Maybe right after reading this. Whether we cry out, “Ouch! That hurts!” and just move on or hold it in until it turns into offense and we become resentful, vindictive, and opt for moral grandstanding is up to us.

Life will bruise the fragile overripe tomato skin of our sensitivity, yet with resilience, a forgivining heart, humility, a commitment to stay on the side of peace and do life as Jesus did, we can rise above the inner courtroom dramas. We recognize pain without giving it power, experience the suggestion of anger without opening the door even a very little bit to allow the devil a foothold, and feel hurt without demanding judgment. We can choose to align our hearts with God’s word. It says that if we love His word, nothing shall by any means offend us (Psalm 119:165 KJV).

^{Image Courtesy: Jason Hafso on Unspalsh}