Victoria Osteen

Most of you know that a pearl comes from an oyster.

And you see that oyster goes through a tremendous process to create and form that pearl.

Funny thing is, is that oyster is not trying to create a pearl.

What that oyster is doing is trying to protect itself from the irritants, the particles, the splinter-like things that tries to make its way into its shell from the ocean waters.

Get into its shell and try to embed itself in the tiny mollusk of the oyster.

So the oyster has something called nacre.

It's a substance that comes naturally to the oyster when an invader comes in that it secretes and it pushes that irritant away from it.

So it pushes and works to secrete the nacre to keep distance between what's trying to harm it.

And as a result of it working and secreting and covering it with nacre, it forms a precious and beautiful pearl.

You know, offenses in our life are a lot like that irritant in the life of an oyster.

Words come, actions come, they're irritants.

They can become offenses.

See, we have got to push those out of our heart and into the hands of God.

See, God has given us a way to insulate ourselves, to put distance between what wants to harm us

And it's the fact that we can decide what we do with it.

We can either push it and release the hurts, release the wrongs, or we can bring them into our life.

And I just want to encourage every one of us to get good at pushing out, pushing out what would try to harm us.

Now, the Bible says this.

It

who have wronged us.