Have you ever had a situation in your life where you felt dishonored? How did you respond? Did you allow your flesh to have first crack at responding?

I have been there and I had allowed my flesh to take first crack at responding. Initially I didn’t feel bad about how I responded. But God took my fleshly response and turned it into a teachable moment. Ain’t God good!!

During the initial stage of that teachable moment, I lifted up a simple and honest prayer: “Jesus, what is it? Why do I always seem to have little pieces of brokenness from feeling dishonored in my life? It’s so frustrating. Lord I need your perspective on these feelings or I need a break from it.” There was no answer, nothing!

Several weeks later as I was thumbing through my Bible, I asked The Lord to lead me to what He wants me to study. I heard a small voice say, “The book of Hosea.” Then the Holy Spirit reminded me of my needing God’s perspective on feeling dishonored.

The book of Hosea describes the tragic details of Hosea’s life thus he was known as the brokenhearted prophet. His sorrows provide a good illustration of the brokenhearted Lord in His relationship with sinful mankind. This was the answer to my question! God’s perspective on dealing with feelings of being dishonored.

The following verse provided the wisdom I needed equipping me to change my perspective on how to respond when feeling dishonored.

“Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you”. Hosea 10:12(ESV)

Sow for yourselves righteousness: We must sow righteousness into our lives—right choices that honor God. We must make these choices by choosing to honor Him in the midst of every situation. Even if we feel dishonored, honor God still.

Reap steadfast love: There is fruit in every choice that honors God. It will be the fruit of God’s unfailing love. Satan’s greatest tactic is to get us entangled in things and thoughts that make us forget or doubt God’s unfailing love. Romans 8:38-39 teaches us that nothing shall separate us from the love of God. We resist the enemy’s distracting entanglements {feelings of being dishonored} by honoring God with choices that glorify Him {not responding out of flesh}.

Break up your fallow ground: Pain and heartbreak are hard. However, I learned not to resist the blessing of brokenness that tills the ground of our hearts. Pain and heartbreak help to break up the unplowed ground of our hearts making them ready for new life, new growth and new maturity in Christ that can’t be found any other way.

For it is time to seek the Lord: When feeling dishonored it’s the best time to seek God as never before. Part of seeking Him is allowing for grace spaces in our lives. Instead of looking at circumstances in our life that leave us dry and broken as emptiness. We can choose to see them as opportunity.  Emptiness is a perfect spot for a space of grace. As we give grace to those who dishonored us, mercy will be returned unto us.

Rain righteousness (the showers): This is where we see growth. When we begin making right choices that honor God, we will start looking at life, people and annoying circumstances not just differently, but through the lens of God.

PEARLStoPONDER: We have all at some point felt dishonored. But who has been more dishonored than Jesus Christ? Yet think about His response to us. We often waddle in our hurt feelings from being dishonored and find ourselves withholding grace from those people. What if God withheld His grace from us on the oh so many times we dishonored Him?

2 Corinthians 12:9--But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Galatians 6:9--And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.