Big scale, little scale, the ripple effect moves widely.  This past week I was looking through pictures of the civil war in Sierra Leone.  A country where
rebel soldiers grab a toddler or baby, place it's arm against a cotton tree and chop it off.  Thousands of adults are unable to work, they too have been brutally amputated as a sign of rebels marking their turf.  Can their be any greater offense ? 

Yesterday I learned of a nine year old boy who was picked up from school by an aunt to be informed that his father had died.  Sitting in the car listening to her news, he burst into tears, she slapped him and told him to never cry again. Now well into his senior years, suffering from a stroke, he was finally releasing the story of a life shaping offense and painfully traveling toward  healing.

If you've ever lived in the prison of a great offense against you, here's a key to unlocking the door. Picture for a moment a mousetrap with bait neatly in place.  A nibble of the bait closes the trap and the life of the mouse is disposed of.  The trap set for your life had bait in it too, but it was the bait of Satan. 

It's a clever word picture created by a chippy, young Colorado preacher and author who's made the problem of offensive people his specialty.   John Bevere picked up the skill through a bruising ordeal with another pastor who put him through emotional hell.   "Pit is just another word for preacher-in-training," says a reflective  John.  He's traveled the world preaching from his book "The Bait of Satan" and has discovered religious people are some of the best at packing their bags with past offenses. 

It's good theology to realize that God Almighty shapes and refines our life through afflictions, it's just part of the process of making quality people. The puzzle for me is how easy it is to be detoured and have our effectiveness disposed of during those afflictions. 

Bevere would say that's because Satan is luring your response mechanism into a trap that has nothing to do with the love of God.  He believes no one can detour your life from God's plan except you.  A careful check through the pages of  the Bible gives story upon story where that's true, from Joseph to Jesus, God works victory despite injustice when our response is shaped by His heart.  The lesson for today means that even a wreck of a spouse that walks out on you doesn't trash your life, your response to the unfairness does. 

Saint Peter, the man whom Catholics model the role of the Pope after and whom Protestants regard as the "rock on which Christ built the church",  gave ample evidence of what would be the route to a supernatural response.  He knew forgiveness was more than a word, it was the act of exercising spiritual strength. 

About the year Peter was martyred for teaching of Christ's way for humanity, he gave this advice;  "Don't lose a minute in building on what you've been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension
fitting into and developing the others.  With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our
Master Jesus."   (2 Peter 1: 5-8, The Message)

Historians tell us within months of writing those words, Peter was killed in a brutal way, crucified upside down. A great offense, yet who can deny Peter's life shines far beyond the injustice he suffered.