Chaplain Shelby Smith served at a local church for 19 years before joining Arkansas Heart Hospital. Here, he has the opportunity to meet the spiritual needs of patients, their families and our staff. In addition to offering prayer and encouragement, Chaplain Shelby Smith shares a weekly devotional. 

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Have you noticed people seem to be more easily offended these days? Such as restaurant customers offended for having to wait for service, or the worker who is offended because he was asked to work extra hours. What about the person who is angry at the police officer for pulling him over for speeding? Or anger toward politicians for supporting something others disagree with? 

People can be especially offended if you express a viewpoint different than theirs. It seems recently even during a short conversation with someone, you will hear about something that offends or makes them angry. 

I recently listened to a sermon by Craig Groeschel, the pastor of Life Church in Oklahoma, where he spoke on, “Being Offended and Anger.” Here is a portion of that sermon: 

“Is your anger making you more like Jesus? Is it making you more joyful? Is it pointing others to the intimacy and life and freedom and joy of Christ? Is it making you more loving? Is it drawing others into a more joyful life? 

We find written in James 1:19, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.” 

Whether our anger is at some small offense or at a major betrayal, an opposing political view or at someone who cut you off in traffic, human anger does not produce the righteousness that God wants.  

Now you might argue that your anger is righteous anger — anger over sin or anger at things that break God’s heart. You may have that kind of anger, but have you noticed most of the time when we have righteous anger it is about someone else’s sin? It may not be a righteous anger after all, but self-righteous anger.  

As a Christ follower, it may be easy for me to criticize someone else’s foul language and ignore my own spiritual pride and gossip; easy for me to judge someone else’s sexual sin and ignore my gluttony and selfishness. We all tend to think our anger is justified. 

Ask yourself these questions:  

• Are people drawn to the grace and goodness of God because of my anger?  
• Is my anger bringing me more joy?  
• Is it blessing and enhancing my marriage?  
• Is it giving my children a life they want to emulate?  
• Is my anger a blessing to others or criticizing others? 
• If we claim to be followers of Christ, we will eventually have to make a decision. We will need to decide when we get angry. 

Do we want to make a point, or do we want to make a difference? Too many people simply want to make a point; they want to win the argument.  

If we want to make a difference, then we will need a different attitude and a different philosophy in dealing with the wrongs of the world. Rather than letting our flesh, feelings and emotions direct our actions, we need to allow the spirit of God to direct our actions. That way we are not just making a point, not just trying to win an argument, but trying to win people to the grace and goodness of Jesus. There is a big difference. 

Matthew 22:35-39 tells the story of a smart guy, an expert in Jewish law, who was in a conversation with Jesus. He asked Jesus a question, “What is the most important thing?” Jesus replied, “Love the lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is just as important, love your neighbor as yourself.” 

Jesus is telling us that we are to love God with everything in us. Every fiber of our being should worship and glorify Him in everything we do. And the way we love Him is by loving his people and showing them grace and having empathy and compassion for people. 

You might be asking, “Practically, how do I deal with being easily offended and my anger?” 

I believe there are a couple of practical things you can do. Lower expectations of others; people are not perfect, and neither are you. Raise your gratitude for God’s grace; He forgave us when we didn’t deserve forgiveness. 

In John chapter 8, there is a story of a woman caught in the act of adultery. The group of men who brought her before Jesus said the law commanded them to stone her to death. They all had their pockets filled with stones prepared to carry out her sentence.  

Then, they asked Jesus what he thought. It is written that Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger. As they questioned him again, Jesus said, “Let anyone of you who has not sinned throw the first stone.”  

Slowly, they began to drop their stones and walk away one at a time until there were no accusers left. Apparently, they realized they also did not measure up and decided they too wanted grace. 

Let me ask you: What’s in your pocket? Is it filled with stones or is it filled with grace? 

Jesus commanded us to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. If we applied this verse to our daily lives, we might all be less offended and less angry. 

Chaplain Shelby Smith served at a local church for 19 years before joining Arkansas Heart Hospital. Here, he has the opportunity to meet the spiritual needs of patients, their families and our staff. In addition to offering prayer and encouragement, Chaplain Shelby Smith shares a weekly devotional. 

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We’ve entered my favorite time of year – the festive holiday season. For the next two months, we will be in a frenzy of buying and eating, though not necessarily in that order.  

I was thinking about Thanksgiving and wondered how many of us ever really think about the word “Thanksgiving” and what it really means?  

It’s a compound word of “thanks” and “giving.” “Thanks” is an expression of kind or grateful thoughts, gratitude or appreciation. “Giving” is defined as freely transferring the possession of something to someone, or to hand over. It goes on to be defined as to freely devote, set aside or sacrifice for a purpose.  

Given the definitions of the individual words, examine for a moment your rituals, activities and thoughts of the past related to this holiday. During the Thanksgiving season, what is your focus? Is it on your desire to have a grand feast? What happens if one of your favorite dishes is not presented? How do you respond when the turkey is burned or undercooked? What is your reaction to the aunt or uncle or cousin who comes to the gathering uninvited, or the relative that wants to talk too much during the game? 

In all the preparations, gatherings and disappointments, we can sometimes lose sight of what this holiday can really become. Oh, I know the stories surrounding how Thanksgiving came about and the stories about the pilgrims, Indians and turkey. But, when you step back, what does Thanksgiving really mean to you? 

For the past couple of years, Thanksgiving has looked quite different for many of us. The pandemic has changed how we gather and what we do when we get together. Some have experienced loss of loved ones. Others have experienced gain as they look back and assess what is really important. Now for the introverts, it has been heaven, but for the extraverts and huggers, well, it has been…the other place.  

We read God’s word in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances: for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 

To look at that again, it said to give thanks in all circumstances. You may ask: “you mean be thankful for the burned turkey? No, be thankful you had a turkey to burn. “You mean be thankful even though I lost a loved one to COVID this year?” Yes, be thankful for the time you had with them and memories of them that you still have. You may have a child, mother or spouse that is suffering from cancer and not expected to live much longer. Are you to be thankful even in this? While you are not thankful they are ill, you can be thankful for the time you have with them; for how God will use you to provide comfort and care for them; and how He will reveal himself through your “thanks-giving.” 

Hard things in life happen to us all. During this season of Thanksgiving, I challenge you to think about what would be most important to you if this were your last Thanksgiving, or the last for someone you love. What would you do differently this season? You see, we never really know just how much time we have left. 

This season, will you be the expression of kind and grateful thoughts? Will people around you feel your gratitude and appreciation? Will you freely devote yourself to sacrificially giving while investing yourself in others? Or is your Thanksgiving more about getting everything just right… just about you and your wants? That’s not really thanksgiving. That sounds like “thanks-getting.” Hmmm…something to think about.  

May God be glorified through you this Thanksgiving season.   

Chaplain Shelby Smith served at a local church for 19 years before joining Arkansas Heart Hospital. Here, he has the opportunity to meet the spiritual needs of patients, their families and our staff. In addition to offering prayer and encouragement, Chaplain Shelby Smith shares a weekly devotional. 

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The words of so many of our old hymns are rooted in the text of the holy scriptures ­­- especially from the Psalms. Songs like “Amazing Grace”, “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and “Face to Face” have verses drawn directly from the scriptures. These songs attempt to express the awe the writer has for an unmeasurable God and the unmeasurable love that God has for us.

I was recently reading an article on the desiringGod.org website written by Marshall Segal I want to share.

Love Beyond Telling by Marshall Segal

“As with so many of our favorite hymns, “The Love of God” was born in adversity. Fredrick Lehman (1868-1953) who wrote the hymn with his daughter, had experienced the failure of his once-profitable business, which left him packing crates of oranges and lemons in Pasadena, California, to make ends meet. Again and again throughout history, deep and enduring trials seem to have a strange and beautiful way of creating waves of worship.

Perhaps the most memorable lines in the hymn, however, were not Lehman’s, but words someone had found scribbled on the walls of an insane asylum a couple of hundred years earlier, words that had been passed along to Lehman and held profound meaning for him.

                        Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made.

                        Were every tree on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade;

                        To write the love of God above, would drain the ocean dry,

                        Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.                                                                                                                

The lyrics, it turns out, were a translation of an old Aramaic poem (now almost a thousand years old). And while no one knows the name of the insane asylum patient, the circumstances of his suffering, or how he came across the poem, the lines sparkle with surprising clarity, hope and, well, sanity. A kind of spiritual sanity that often eludes us.

That Lehman treasured the lyrics is hardly surprising. Living just a handful of miles from the Pacific Ocean, he would have known, with acute awareness, the roaring vastness of the sea, the tall and swaying elegance of the palm trees, and the bursts of colors of the California sunsets. Day by day, he beheld the brilliant orangeness of its oranges and smelled the lively tartness of its lemons. The ocean, the trees, the sky, the earth  were enormous and familiar friends of his—and yet each so small next to the love he had come to know in Christ.

When Lehman looked at the sky, he saw a hint of something wider still. He sang, like David, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps 8:3-4). The sky above him awed him, and then humbled him. If God could stretch out heavens like these with his hands, why would he pierce those hands in love for me?

When Lehman looked out over the ocean, he heard a hint of something deeper still. “You cast all our sins into the depths of the sea”(Micah 7:19). The ocean taught him of forgiveness, of a dark, far-off, forgotten place where God submerged our cancelled sins. How could God possibly forget what we had said, and thought, and done? Well, he could bury them beneath the sea. And so, he does.

When Lehman stared at the towering trees about him, he tasted a hint of something higher still. He surely could not count the trees that surrounded him, and their numberlessness reminded him of the unsearchable greatness of God. He may have read math like this in the Psalms: “You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told” (Psalm 40:5). More than can be told. Is there any better summary of the love of God?

Were we to fill that ocean with ink and stretch out scrolls to cover those skies, and were every tree, of every kind, a pen, and every one of us a scribe, we still could capture only hints and whispers of the boundless love of God. We could drain the ocean dry, and then still have so much more to say.

Let that never keep us from saying as much as we can. We ought to thank God for those, like Frederick Lehman, who help us taste and see and feel realities we will never fully grasp. We ought to thank God for the poor soul clinging to faith in that asylum. If he had not scrawled those words on that wall, from his embattled memory, would we have ever heard them? We ought to thank God for the pen that crafted those original lines, in Aramaic, so many years earlier. Who could have imagined just how far his words would float, like a letter in a bottle, and how many hearts they would brighten and strengthen over centuries?”

As you look back at the faithfulness of God in your life situations, is it hard to find the words to describe what He is to you? What He means to you? Was He your Protector, your Provider, your Shelter or your Peace? Now, as you remember God’s faithfulness to you during past or even present difficulties, write down the words that come to mind on a piece of paper, and use that piece of paper as a bookmark in your Bible or Quran or devotional. Be as creative as you like.

Who knows, maybe years from now someone will find those words and they will be the inspiration that someone needs to be reminded of the immeasurable Love of God. Let’s pray.