How Unresolved Offense Destroys Love

People don’t wake up one morning and decide they don’t love their spouse. What we see far more often is something quieter and more dangerous: a hurt that never gets resolved, a story we keep replaying, and a wall that goes up brick by brick until the house feels cold. We’re naming that enemy directly, unresolved offense, and we’re telling the truth about what it does to marriage, intimacy, friendship, and even your relationship with God.

We talk through how offense starts with “little foxes” like unmet expectations, small disappointments, and everyday irritations that don’t seem serious enough to address. Then we show how those “small” moments turn into patterns like assumptions, passive-aggressive comments, nitpicking, shutdown, emotional separation, and ultimately the claim that you’ve “fallen out of love.” Along the way we ground it in the Bible, including Ephesians 4:26 on urgency and Hebrews 12:15 on bitterness spreading, because resentment in marriage is never neutral.

You’ll also hear our real-life examples, what we’ve learned after 26 years, and the practical tools we use when conflict hits: stop keeping a list, deal with it fast, separate the issue from the person, bring it up without attacking, challenge the story in your head, forgive even when feelings lag behind, rebuild connection on purpose, and invite God into deeper healing when a conversation isn’t enough. We close with prayer and a chance to renounce offense and start again.

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Transcript

Offense Is The Hidden Divorce Trigger

Ken Claytor 0:00

People are getting divorced and they're calling it unreconcilable differences, but it's unresolved offense. Something happened that you didn't know how to forgive and move on. That's the bait of Satan. Even in the marriage relationship, they're being lured away because they have an offense that has now snowballed into this whole thing and now there's bitterness and contention in the house.

Tabatha Claytor 0:17

And yeah, and offense can be one of those things. It's like offense starts with one brick, right? And when you don't deal with it, another brick is coming. You pick up another brick and you start building this wall. And this wall is between you and the other person. When you are offended with another person, it doesn't just affect your relationship, it affects your relationship with God.

Ken Claytor 0:38

Stop having this long laundry list of stuff that people haven't done. What are you doing? You're building a wall. Right. That's why there's no romance. That's why there's not a good connection. There's a fence there. Hey everybody.

Tabatha Claytor 0:52

Hey everyone.

Ken Claytor 0:53

Welcome to Doing Life with Ken and Tabitha. We're so excited to have you join us today. And I don't know, I just feel like we might have some people who are just finding our podcast. And we want to say welcome to the family.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Yes.

Ken Claytor 1:04

You know, our goal of this podcast is to basically help you grow in love with God and also the people that God's placed in your life. This is primarily a marriage podcast, but it's not just that, it's also a personal growth podcast because when you get better, the relationship, whatever relationship you're in, will get better as well. And I feel like we got just a great episode. We have one of those shareworthy episodes today that you're really going to want to share this with other people. And today we want to talk about how unresolved offense destroys love. All right. And this is like real talk today. Real talk, you know. I've kind of the motivation behind this is a couple that we've um kind of been working with, and their marriage is in a really, really bad place. And the reason that it's in a really, really bad place, if I was to get to the root, has to do with offense. There was some offense that happened years ago, even before the wedding. And that offense came in to the wedding, then it came into the marriage, then it went from week to week, month to month, year to year, several years now into the marriage. The marriage is on the brink of breaking up, and it all can be traced back to offense. Someone got offended and they never resolved it, and it snowballed into this whole thing where I don't even want to be in the same room with you. Wow. What's your any any like opening thoughts?

Why Believers Still Get Stuck

Tabatha Claytor 2:24

I think that is so common in marriage, in particular. I mean, it's common in any relationship. You're going to offend one another, whatever the relationship is.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah.

Tabatha Claytor 2:35

Especially in marriage, offense happens and you have to deal with it immediately before it sets in. You don't want it to set in, you know, and be cancerous to your soul.

Ken Claytor 2:47

But I got a question because you you kind of understand um my motivation behind today's podcast. How does that happen though? Especially for a believer. How do you uh stand on the altar and you say, I'm gonna love you, sickness, health, rich, poor, to death do you part? And then something happens, and it's not even a big something. Maybe it's like, well, you didn't give me enough emotions, or you didn't let me uh touch you, or you didn't like my my in-laws, or you didn't pay this bill, and then that goes to something else that goes to something else, and then goes to something else. And now the person that you said you were committed to for the rest of your life, now you can only about even stand them. Like they make your skin crawl. How does that happen for a believer?

Tabatha Claytor 3:29

I I'm just trying to I think that we underestimate um the power of the principles of God's word, number one. Okay. Maybe we don't know God's word or apply God's word and to work it in our life. And so the Bible talks about offense, okay, amongst other things. We're talking about offense, right? So the Bible talks about offense. The Bible says things like not letting the sun go down on your wrath. The Bible says that before you go to God and you have an offense towards someone else, go to them, ask for forgiveness first, get it right for them with them, and then go to God. And so it's like we just forget about the gospel.

Ken Claytor 4:07

When it comes to marriage, especially.

Tabatha Claytor 4:08

Yeah, when it comes to marriage. And it's like we say yes at the altar, and then it's like little things come in like, oh, well, I'm upset because he was supposed to have lunch with me today and he didn't. You know, it's like something really small.

Ken Claytor 4:20

He's always playing video games. Yeah. He's, you know, he he he he never, you know, she never, she's never affectionate towards me. She never affirms me.

Tabatha Claytor 4:27

And we can take that little thing and hold it, and it's an offense.

Ken Claytor 4:31

It's an offense.

Tabatha Claytor 4:32

And we let it go day after day after day after day until it sets a stronghold in our soul.

Defining Offense And The Wall

Ken Claytor 4:38

If you stick with us today all the way to the end, we're gonna give you some specific principles about how to overcome offense. I'm telling you now, stick with us to the end on this one. Uh sweetheart, how would you define offense?

Tabatha Claytor 4:50

I would say that offense is a few different things, like when you get your feelings hurt, whenever you get um, you know, somebody does something to irritate you, aggravate you, uh you feel belittled. That's offense.

Ken Claytor 5:05

Um, the the original Greek definition would be a stumbling block. So, you know, John Bevere wrote this book called The Bait of Satan, and it's a book that we have in our leadership school because it's like that sneaky spirit, it's that sneaky mindset to lure you out of the will of God to cause you to stumble. So stumbling block is like a trip chord, meaning that, you know, God's called us to run a race. And every race needs to have a good pace to win a race. But you cannot win a race if your pace is being um hurt because you are stumbling all the time. Yeah. And there's a lot of people stumbling in their marriage, stumbling in business, stumbling in ministry because they just have the bait of Satan. They're just taking that offense. Well, you said this, you didn't look at me like this. I remember I had a lady one time get so mad at me in church because she thought I just walked by her. I didn't see that lady at all. But she just knew and she was projecting her insecurities on me. And it's still offended to me at this day. And I can't do anything about that. Right. You thought I on purpose walked by you. You don't even know me. I don't even do stuff like that. But that's the bait of Satan. And there's too many people, even in the marriage relationship, they're being lured away because they have an offense that has now snowballed into this whole thing, and now there's bitterness and contention in the house.

Tabatha Claytor 6:16

And yeah, and offense can be one of those things. It's like offense starts with one brick, right? There's the brick of offense, boom, it's there. And when you don't deal with it, another brick is coming. You pick up another brick and you start building this wall. And this wall is between you and the other person. The thing about offense as a believer also is that when you are offended with another person, it doesn't just affect your relationship, it affects your relationship with God.

Ken Claytor 6:44

It does. It does.

Tabatha Claytor 6:44

It hinders your relationship with God. So we have to get rid of offense.

Ken Claytor 6:48

Yeah, yeah. There's a scripture that says that offense in the heart of a person is like a walled city. And so something like that it says. I'm paraphrasing, but what it means is that like a brother who's offended, it's so hard to be one because that offense has now brick by brick, it's built up this whole case. Yeah. And now to be able to get through that wall is so hard. And that's what we just see, especially in a marriage. Like, let's use the example I was talking about in the beginning. Okay, year one, you're building a wall, year two, you're building a wall, year three, you're building a wall. And what people are doing, and they're saying, and people are getting divorced and they're calling it unreconcilable differences, but it's unresolved offense.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yep.

Ken Claytor 7:25

Something happened, but you didn't know how to forgive and move on. That's I I love you so much because I believe that's like a strong gift for you. You just um, you know, they say with quarterbacks in football that you have to have a short memory. Meaning that if you throw an interception, don't get up in the next play and think about the interception. Right. You got to forget about what you what you did. And you do that in our marriage. And I I think that's like one of the greatest things that we could teach anybody is like to have a short memory.

Tabatha Claytor 7:52

Absolutely.

Ken Claytor 7:52

Stop having this long laundry list of stuff that people haven't done. What are you doing? You're building a wall. Right. That's why you're that's that's why there's no romance. That's why there's not a good connection. There's a fence there.

Tabatha Claytor 8:02

Yeah, you have to you have to throw out your bricks, your bricks of offense. And so as soon as it comes, you have to throw that away so that that you don't start building that wall. And so um, I think one of the easiest ways to throw out your bricks, throw out your offenses, is to look at yourself. Sometimes when we get offended by another person, it's all about them and what they did and all of that. It's all about them. But what I like to do is look at myself and say, okay, well, what about me? Even if they I am right and they are perfect, you know, they're they're so wrong and I am right, I still, okay, I'm not perfect. And I probably did something to offend someone too. And I know I've done things to offend my husband. So let me just throw that brick out right now. Um, and so I might still talk to you about it. Right. Hey, I feel like this. It made me feel this way. Let's talk about that. Yeah. Right. Um, but what it does is you throw out your brick so you're not building that wall.

Ken Claytor 8:58

I love it. You know, practically speaking, um, guys, offense is when you get hurt, disappointed, disrespected, overlooked, misunderstood. And instead of handling it the right way, you carry it. Offense is not just I'm hurt. Offense becomes I'm hurt, but I'm holding it against you.

unknown 9:15

Yeah.

Ken Claytor 9:16

And that's what we want to help you guys to do. That will destroy your marriage. And so why do you think some couples um hold on to offense that way? Why do you think that there are certain people they're in a marriage, but is it their upbringing? Is it trauma? Is it lack of maturity? Any guesses on that?

Tabatha Claytor 9:33

Ooh, I would say all of that. Um, I think what for the mature believer, I will say, is that it starts out as a little offense, like we kind of started to talk about. It starts out as something small and then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger before we know it. One year goes by, two years go by, and now you know, we have irreconcilable.

Ken Claytor 9:58

I want to have your last name and have babies with you to where I can't stand you and you are despicable to me. You know, because it's the little foxes. Yeah, it's the little things that we haven't dealt with. And maybe, and watch this, we're not saying that there's not things that have been done that's offend the bull. Because there's some things that people can do to you that that was really offensive.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah.

Ken Claytor 10:19

Um, but at the same time, I mean, more so what I'm focusing on is the things that aren't, there's these little foxes. Yeah. It's like the little offenses.

Tabatha Claytor 10:26

We build ourselves up like if there was adultery, if there was something huge that happened, oh, we're ready for that, we're ready to fight for that. But it's almost like uh we fall into the plan of the enemy with little offenses. You know, it's like, oh, we're we're looking out for these big things all the while, all these little foxes are running into our relationship.

Ken Claytor 10:46

Yeah, yeah. So it's almost like the sneaky offenses, the quiet offenses, the subtle offenses, the little offenses. That's what we want the Holy Spirit to kind of alarm you of today and say, do I really have offense in my heart? And don't make this about your spouse or who's not watching the podcast with you. Make this about yourself today. Yeah. You know? And so uh here's a question. What do you think is harder? Getting over um what someone did or getting over what someone didn't do? You know what I mean by that? Like, is it harder to get over you cheated on me, you lied about me, you wasn't there for me, or I thought you were gonna be there for me, or uh, you know, what they didn't do. You know what I'm saying? What you did to me or what you didn't do. Well, I just thought marriage was gonna be like this. I just thought my wife would treat me this way and she would, you know.

Tabatha Claytor 11:34

Your expectation of what you thought marriage was going to be. You've been let down from your expectations. Um, you know, I can't say that one is gonna be harder than the other. I would guess that the actual let down of the actual being offended, like adultery or you know, something that someone did, I would think that that's harder to, I don't know, in my mind, that's what it would be. But you and I both know um that we've talked to many couples where those major offenses were not those were never had, and it was all well, I I think that he should do this and I think that she should do that. And they are let down from their expectations, and and we're looking like, oh my gosh, guys, just yeah.

Expectations And Why Marriage Feels Hard

Ken Claytor 12:23

What do you do about that? Because I think that that's like a real thing in all kinds of relationships people have the expectation here, and then when you the expectation. So I thought when I um when I gave my life to Jesus, I was gonna have more peace, more joy, more of his power and his presence, but I had some suffering and some attack and some warfare and some weight. And because I didn't expect that, now I'm bitter towards God. I got this job and I thought it was gonna be this and I thought it was gonna be that, but I'm working with people in an environment that's harder, and they call on me at all times of night. And sometimes it's not that it's bad, it's just what you didn't expect it. Yeah. We were headed for divorce, but today we're best friends. We're Ken and Tabitha. We've been married for 26 years, and honestly, it's been the best 24 years of my life. You do the math. The first two years was absolutely horrible, but now Tabitha, she got herself together and things are much better.

Tabatha Claytor 13:17

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Ken Claytor 13:36

If you love rom-coms, romance novels, you'll love this book. Butterfly Love is easy. Keeping the butterflies, not so much. We want to help you fall in love, stay in love, and grow in love. This book right here, this is for you. Get your copy today. What do you do about like failed expectations?

Tabatha Claytor 13:59

I think this is where the multitude of counselors come into play. This is where our podcast comes into play. There is um you I would say go to people who have been there done that.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yeah.

Tabatha Claytor 14:11

People who have life experience, people who've been married for 26 years, and it's like, yeah, we thought it was gonna be like that too, but it's not.

Ken Claytor 14:19

Right, right.

Tabatha Claytor 14:20

You're not the only one.

Ken Claytor 14:20

Yeah.

Tabatha Claytor 14:21

This is what you're doing.

Ken Claytor 14:22

Well, I always tell people um, this is gonna be hard. Like marriage is gonna be hard. You're talking about two people with different experiences and different backgrounds coming together to be one and live in the same house and share the same bed for multiple decades. That's gonna be hard. But you've been made for hard things.

Tabatha Claytor 14:38

Absolutely.

Real-Life Offense Examples At Home

Ken Claytor 14:39

Parenting is gonna be extremely hard. Oh, yeah. Everybody posts how cute their babies are. Them babies ain't cute all the time. Them babies throwing up, got you up all late at night and everything. Then they grow to be teenagers. Then you gotta, it's like a hostage negotiation all the time. Just to get out of the door and get in the car. Well, I don't know if I, you know, everything's like, well, I'm gonna look that up. What do you mean you're gonna look that up? I'm like 30 years older than you. You ain't gotta go to Chat GPT to hear what I'm gonna say. You know, so this is gonna be hard, but you've been made for hard things. And so my my my whole thing to people is like if it's hard, you can handle it. And it's okay. But people don't expect it. They think they're gonna get married, and this is just gonna be, I'm gonna put it on cruise control. Listen, you gotta work on your marriage at your 10, your 20, your 30, you're 40. You never take your foot off the gas on this. Yeah, I gotta keep on dating you, I gotta keep on chasing you, I gotta keep contending for you. And I and I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm here for it. Right. But a lot of people think like, oh well, I got married, and then they start to focus on their careers, and then the kids get involved, and then you just drift. That's not good. That's not good.

unknown 15:38

Yeah.

Ken Claytor 15:39

And so do you feel like um men and women handle offense differently?

Tabatha Claytor 15:44

I mean, yes and no. Uh I think that men uh women can be a little more vocal about how we feel.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Yeah.

Tabatha Claytor 15:55

And so we can be like the nager, we can, you know, talk, talk, talk, talk, and what about this, what about this? And you know, so we can be more vocal, but I've seen men be just as equally emotional, but hold it in.

Ken Claytor 16:09

Hold it in. Which sometimes can be even more dangerous. Yeah. Because you don't even know what that what they're doing.

Tabatha Claytor 16:14

They let it out to other people, you know, and not their spouse. Uh so yeah, we have different ways of um dealing with things, but I think we still experience that same emotion.

Ken Claytor 16:25

Give me some examples of times you've been offended at me and how did you handle it?

Tabatha Claytor 16:29

Um I have to think.

Ken Claytor 16:31

So I I I immediately I don't offend at all, I know.

Tabatha Claytor 16:36

I immediately go to little things because I'm human and like we live together. So little things of being offended would be like, you know, um not taking off your shoes. Okay, you know, um, or like leaving cups around the house.

Ken Claytor 16:52

I don't think some people would even look at that as an offense, but if it's unresolved, it can become an offense. Yeah. I'm just always picking up after you.

Tabatha Claytor 17:00

Yeah, it goes into that. So it'd be like, oh my gosh, you know, maybe it's a busy week and there's a lot going on in my life. And then it's like I would feel, and these are these are these are thoughts that will go through my head. Man, I'm picking up a lot of shoes around here. Um, you know, the kids have their shoes, and now I got to come pick up his shoes. And then I go to the bedroom and I finally want to sit down and rest. And there's like two cups over here sitting around, like, now I got to pick up these cups, now I got to go back downstairs.

Ken Claytor 17:24

Walking around offended.

Tabatha Claytor 17:26

And it can be, yeah, because I'm tired and I'm frustrated, and I find myself like, you know, just thinking about this. And it's so funny because this happened maybe a couple of weeks ago.

Ken Claytor 17:36

Okay, let it out, girl. Where are you offended at what are we?

Tabatha Claytor 17:39

This is what happened. So um, and it was like one of those threefold things where like the Holy Spirit reminded me, like, you're complaining, you know. And so I was just like, oh, okay, yeah, I'm not gonna complain. And I started feeding myself good thoughts, like, man, I love my husband. I'm so glad, you know, I love my kids, you know, because I was just picking up stuff, all the a lot of stuff. And so then I like went into another room and there was more stuff, and I went into the same pattern. I was complaining again. Oh my gosh, there's close.

Ken Claytor 18:07

Tom out. And and the and the thing about this story is that she fired the cleaners. She let the cleaners go. And I knew that this was gonna be too much to handle. But what she does is that now she gets an attitude like she let the cleaners go. Now she's cleaning everything and mad at us. But she the one that says that she wanted to clean because she was tired of not doing it herself and things being out of order. Let me just go in. And I'm thinking to myself, do you know your schedule and the amount of responsibilities that you have? But it's amazing that you would do that. Then get offended at us.

Tabatha Claytor 18:40

You're right. But my offense was saying I when I fired the cleaners, I didn't know that my family was going to be so slobbish, you know?

Ken Claytor 18:54

We just living out here.

Tabatha Claytor 18:55

Now I'm I thought, oh, I can do what the cleaners do, not a big deal, right? But now I'm doing what the cleaners did, plus picking up after everyone else. Then it was too long. And that's why I became offended because I was like, they don't pick up, they leave their shoes everywhere, they leave their stuff and their books and their cups. And so, anyway, back to my story.

Ken Claytor 19:18

That's what offense does. It's it makes it tense, and everybody's like, oh, mom is upset.

Tabatha Claytor 19:22

Well, what happened? Yeah, and I told actually told our kids this. I was like, man, I was offended today, and this is what happened, right? And so then the third time the Lord reminds me again, you're offended, or it didn't say you're offended, but you're murmuring and complaining because it was this whole thing. I was the Lord was working with me, right? Talk to a Lord. And the third time I started doing it again, and I dropped, I was up in your clo um, it was in your office, right? On your desk, you had maybe four to five glasses. I'm just passionate now. Okay, you know, I'm just passionate. There were four to five diff big glasses, small glasses, bottle glasses, all of these glasses. And I was offended, and I knocked one of the glasses on the fall, on the and it was one of my favorite ones. My fall pumpkin. Like it was just, and I don't even know why it was it was out of season, shouldn't even have been out. The fall it falls on the ground and explodes.

Ken Claytor 20:15

Yeah.

Tabatha Claytor 20:16

And I had to repent to the Lord.

Ken Claytor 20:19

So the moral of this story, people, is that offense will cause you to do dumb stuff and um mess you up bigger.

Tabatha Claytor 20:29

It's a lesson that I remember though. No, it was just the Lord, um, the Holy Spirit was prompting me and showing me I cannot allow those little things to fester. Here's this is because you started off saying, show me some things where you get offended. This is what happens. I will, if I allow that, it will build up. I'll start building bricks, I'll build a wall, and then it's the end of the day or the end of the week. We haven't been able to talk, we're so busy, we're running around doing things, and then I just can't even look at you in the face. I'm just like, I'm angry. I've been feeling that way. You're irritating me. You know what I mean? Like, oh my gosh.

Ken Claytor 21:02

Have I been irritating you lately? I've been feeling that a little bit lately.

Tabatha Claytor 21:05

No, no. You had a thing going on with your eye, and you were contagious and gross. And so therefore, I stayed away from you, wasn't irritated by you.

Ken Claytor 21:17

But anyway, I I when I I was offended with you, and it I can't remember, but yesterday what happened? There was something um, oh you had it freezing cold at night. It was like offended at night. Oh man, guys, listen to me. It was so cold in the house that I went and I got already had like two covers on, right? I went and I got fully dressed. I put on a hoodie, I put on some sweatpants, still uh still couldn't couldn't get to sleep, was freezing, okay? Then I went and got like three or four more covers. I had like five, six covers total. And then I had all these clothes and still couldn't. So because she has Hot flashes like she's having now, and this menopause thing, she has like everybody's on frigid, right? So for whatever reason, I woke up at one, couldn't go back to sleep, like shiver all the way, 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m., 5 a.m. By 6 a.m., I was upset. And so I'm out there and I'm like, okay, let me just get up and you know, at the same time, I'm fasting. So I was like fasting, you know, supposed to be spiritual, but my flesh was tripping and I'm cold. And so when she came out of the room, I was just like, why is it so cold in this house?

Tabatha Claytor 22:30

You got me too. I came out, it was a great day. And I thought it was cold too.

Ken Claytor 22:34

Why is it so cold in this house? I'm the man of the house. I didn't say that, but I'm thinking of it. And I can't even enjoy my own house because you got it so cold. And that's an offense. Yeah. That's an offense. And how long did it take me to apologize?

Tabatha Claytor 22:49

Not long.

Ken Claytor 22:50

Same day. Babe, I'm sorry. You know, I'm sorry. It really wasn't even about that. It was actually other pressure that I was under of messages that I needed to prepare in a week that had tons of hard conversations and things that I had to do that I was not looking forward to. But it just hurt me that I didn't have sleep. And now I'm up here and let me tell you about why it's so cold in this house. And so I guess we're giving you these real life examples just to say maybe it's not coldness for you. Maybe it's not what she said. But what is the offense that has been going on in your house? And so, so for me, we got to be humble. We got to be willing to forgive. We got to be willing to have conversations. And so offense grows into assumptions, distance, coldness, passes of aggressive comments, nitpicking control, shutting down. I'm fine when you're not fine, exaggerating things, no sex, emotional separation. And then they say we've fallen out of love. No, you didn't resolve offense.

Tabatha Claytor 23:48

That's right. And you know what happens sometimes when one person gets offended, they state it, and then the other person gets offended too. So you could have been like, hey, you know, like the the AC is so cold and all this stuff. And I could have been like, well, turn it down. What are you doing? I'm hot. Why you, you know, and I could have came back at you and you came back at me, and then it was it had just been crazy.

Signs Of Unresolved Offense

Ken Claytor 24:09

The funny thing is that people don't wake up saying, I don't, uh, I don't love my spouse. They wake up saying, you know, I'm tired, um, I'm guarded, I don't feel safe, I don't feel close. And a lot of times it's because of just unresolved offense. And so here are some signs that you guys for you guys can look at to see if you might have offense. You stop talking as much, you stop laughing together, you stop touching each other, you stop assuming the best about each other, you start keeping record, you start comparing your spouse to other people, you stop wanting to be around them, you stop with intimacy and sex. And if you have unresolved offense, it can turn into bitterness, contempt, lack of affection, lack of intimacy, even temptation. One of the worst things is just withdraw. And we've been talking to couples lately, they're not evil people, but they are withdrawn.

unknown 25:10

Wow.

Ken Claytor 25:11

And they have withdrawn now back into it's almost like because you're not doing this, I'm not gonna do this. I was just talking to a couple, and it was like the husband was saying, Well, I need more affection, I need laughs, I need touches, I need hugs. And the wife was saying, Well, because you don't do this, I haven't been giving you those things. And this was a big thing. He wasn't supposed to be doing this, but it was like completely unresolved because I am not going to give you this until you do that. That's an that's just unresolved. You have to be willing to do what you do by faith, not simply because of the person's behavior, but just because it's the right thing to do.

Tabatha Claytor 25:52

Right. It's not easy.

Ken Claytor 25:53

Yeah. And so this is what the scripture says, Ephesians 4 26. Tell me what you think. It says don't let the sun go down while you're still angry and don't give the devil a foothold.

Tabatha Claytor 26:06

That's good. I think that puts an urgency on forgiveness and dealing with the offenses. Like it at the end of the day, you should have dealt with the offenses.

Ken Claytor 26:18

Yeah. To me, it means offense is not neutral. Unresolved anger gives the enemy access. So don't give a foothold to the devil. And I think sometimes people give a I'm not giving a foothold to the devil in my in my house.

Tabatha Claytor 26:31

That's what I think people don't realize is that the enemy is coming for you.

Ken Claytor 26:36

Your ministry of marriage.

Tabatha Claytor 26:37

It's not to put too much weight on that, but he's coming for you.

Ken Claytor 26:40

Yeah, yeah. Hebrews 12, 15 says, see to it that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. That means bitterness spreads, not just in your marriage, but into your kids, your friendships, your family, even your relationship with God.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Yep.

Ken Claytor 26:57

And said that root of bitterness, it grows up. And so offense is kind of leading to a bitter disposition.

Tabatha Claytor 27:04

It contaminates other areas of your life.

Ken Claytor 27:07

Proverbs 18, 19 says, a brother offended is harder to be one than a strong city. And so offense is not okay, guys. All right. Um, we we can't build these walls. You can't. Yeah.

Tabatha Claytor 27:19

And and I think I want married couples to know, especially those of you who may be, you know, you're offended.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Yeah.

Tabatha Claytor 27:27

You know you're holding on to bitterness. That offense is turned into bitterness. It's turned into maybe some hatred, which is a strong word, but it happens. Um, I want you to know that it is possible to overcome offenses. You know, like let's just take maybe teenage years, college years. We had friends, right or die friends, your best friends, right? I mean, like, you know, guy friends, you know, I had girlfriends. And my friends would do many things to offend me. I mean, we would offend each other all day, every day. And what? If by the end of the day, we get into fights. I got into fights with one of my best friends in high school. Like we got into a fight, but then we were best friends again. So why was it so easy for us to forgive each other and to just keep on going on? Uh, because we wanted to like each other. We, we did, we, we wanted to be friends, you know. But another thing is that that friendship relationship didn't have the covenant relationship that a man and a woman does.

Mentorship Invite For Church Leaders

Eight Practical Ways To Forgive

Ken Claytor 28:28

Yeah, there's a different level of warfare after the husband and the wife. Are you a senior leader, a second chair leader, or simply someone who's thinking about launching a church? If that's you, I want to personally invite you to be a part of the Global Pastors and Leaders Network. You know, I've been in ministry now 18, 19 years. We started with six people in the rec center, but on today, we have five locations in four cities in two different nations. We see over 4,000 people in regular attendance every single Sunday. And we want to pay it forward. People are asking me, Pastor Ken, how are you guys doing what you're doing at a live church? A lot of people want a shortcut to success. The only shortcut is mentorship. And so I'm starting a new thing called mentorship Mondays with Pastor Ken and Friends. We're launching a monthly Zoom call where I'm building real life ministry questions. I'm bringing some of our team along with us. We're opening up our playbook to really share with you what we do at a live church and how we're doing it. My team and I will be hosting this call every third Monday. If this resonates with you, and if you're hungry, humble, and know that God's just calling you to war, join us for the next call. We'll see you there. But the principle should apply the same way, like me too. I could get in a fight with my best friend, like a fist fight, and forgive each other the next day like nothing happened. But then we have married couples that won't even have sex with each other. Why is it so hard and don't want to talk to each other? Why is it so hard? There's a devil lose. Absolutely. And if you don't understand how to bind up the devil and loose the will of God, you're going to be defeated in the ministry of marriage. So I want to go through like real practical stuff and please just stop me whenever you want to jump in. But how to overcome offense. You know, by this time in the podcast, we said to stick around to the end. And this is the gold right here. Okay. Because this is the practical part. Because this is what I believe about our audience. Our audience, the people who are part of this family, they want to do right.

Tabatha Claytor 30:15

Absolutely.

Ken Claytor 30:16

They want to do right. They want to fight for their marriage.

Tabatha Claytor 30:18

We ain't got time to be sitting around here. Yeah.

Ken Claytor 30:20

They want to be in the will of God. Now, some of them are out of the will of God, and their marriage is hanging on by a thread, but they're here because they so this is this is what you can do practically, how to overcome offense. Number one, you got to decide that you're not going to collect offense. Stop keeping a list because love keeps no record of wrong.

Tabatha Claytor 30:41

Absolutely. Now, the story that I was saying of how there were three times where the Lord was reminding me that I was complaining about cleaning and stuff, that's because I had a previous conversation with the Lord saying, help me not to be offended. Help me not to murmur and complain. I found out, um, I heard someone say that when you murmur and complain, you team up with the enemy.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Yeah.

Tabatha Claytor 31:02

Like, so I didn't want to get on the enemy side against my children and my husband. And so I had decided previously, Lord, help me not to become offended.

Ken Claytor 31:12

Yeah.

Tabatha Claytor 31:12

And everyone can do that.

Ken Claytor 31:14

Yeah. Number two would be deal with it fast. The longer it sits, the bigger it gets.

Tabatha Claytor 31:19

Absolutely.

Ken Claytor 31:20

Number three would be separate the issue from the person. You hurt me doesn't mean you're the devil. And this is just maturity stuff, y'all. This is like stop making every stop demonizing everyone. Just because someone makes a mistake or they don't do, uh, you know, they're not you. That doesn't make them the devil. Okay. Um, number four would be learn how to bring it up without attacking. So use a phrase like this when you did blank, I felt blank, not you always and you never. Okay. Well, I'm being attacked now. It's not a conversation.

Tabatha Claytor 31:55

We have to be careful not to judge our spouse's heart and intents. Like no one knows what a man's thinking in his heart except for God. Yeah. And so if I see you do something, I can't say and judge you and say, hey, well, you did this because of this. And that's no one's gonna receive that kind of thing.

Ken Claytor 32:13

But that's a common spirit today. People think that they can judge a person's heart and they call him the devil and false this and false that, and they're acting as if they can judge a person's heart.

Tabatha Claytor 32:23

Be careful.

Ken Claytor 32:24

But God is the one who judges our heart. But you know, people bring that into marriage. But number five is this ask, what story am I telling myself? Ask yourself, what story am I telling myself? Because assumptions destroy love. And many times we're offended at something, and it's a story in our mind that's not even real. What about this number six? Is forgive even when you still feel it. Forgiveness is obedience before it's emotions. Forgiveness to me is a choice. It's not a feeling. It's not like, well, I feel like forgiving you. I don't feel like forgiving you, but I still forgive you because God forgave me. And it's a choice. I choose to forgive you.

Tabatha Claytor 33:00

I feel like um I might say that to you often, if like, you know, well, I don't know, babe. I'll I'll say it as a joke, but what I'm doing is communicating that I forgive you, but I'm still mad at you. You know, like I'm I'm just mad at you right now, and I might come sit on your lap or something and say, I'm just mad at you because I have that emotion in there that I'm still working through, right? Knowing that I forgive you and I love you and you know, whatever. Right. But sometimes just express how you feel.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Yeah.

Tabatha Claytor 33:27

You know, like, yeah, I forgive you, of course. I love you, but man, I'm still kind of my feelings are hurt.

Ken Claytor 33:32

Yeah, yeah. I love that. Number seven would be rebuild connection on purpose. Date nights, laugh again, touch again, pray again. So, I don't know, date nights to me, I can give you like three or four non-negotiables in America, family meetings. Gotta have them, weekly or bi-weekly. If not, you're not gonna communicate like you need to. Number two, date nights, gotta have it. Get a sitter, put the kids somewhere. You ain't gotta spend a lot of money, but you need to still uh have romance in your relationship. Number three, time together at the end of every day, pillow talk, sit down at the end of every day. Doesn't have to be sex, but it should be some kind of connection at the end of every day. Put everybody to bed. There shouldn't be kids that are two years old running around at midnight. Your house is out of order. Everybody, 7 o'clock, 7:30, 800.

Tabatha Claytor 34:21

Put those kids in bed.

Ken Claytor 34:22

Lights out, go to your own bed. Me and mommy got time to watch a movie together, um, read a book together, uh, you know, be together, you know, be intimate together. That's very important. Those three things alone right there will change most marriages.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

Yeah.

Ken Claytor 34:36

But um, that's important. Number eight is invite God into the healing. And I'll stop with number eight today because of new beginnings. Number eight is the of new beginnings, and I just want to declare new beginnings over you guys who are watching, because some offenses are too deep to fix with a talk. You're gonna need grace. And you're gonna have to invite God into the healing process. I just don't understand how people are married without God because God was the one who created the institution of marriage when he brought Eve to Adam. Because God is the one who's created marriage, for marriage really to be everything God wants it to be, he should be invited into the marriage. And if you're a person who's easily offended, or if you've identified yourself as a person who carries offense, or if you know that your spouse is offended at you, say, God, I need your help. Help me get rid of this offense, help me forgive, help me be a person who's just I don't know, what I hear is like easy like Sunday morning. Because I think that about you. I believe that, yeah, like as a woman who is a strong woman, like a boss lady, you could be giving me a really hard time in life. And I think that there are women that give their man, and there are men who give them a hard time. Yeah. No, man, we didn't get married to have a hard time. Let's forgive and forget. Let's build this. You know, we have a saying, it's always team clay. I don't know what your team is, Smith, Johnson, whatever you are, but it shouldn't be anything that can come in between you guys. Yeah. Like, yeah, we're two different people, we're gonna have some challenges, but I'm gonna forgive you. It's just it's too much on the line to be fighting myself because the two have become one. And so offense builds walls, but humility builds bridges. Offense builds walls, but humility builds bridges.

Tabatha Claytor 36:15

That's good.

Ken Claytor 36:15

Any closing thoughts?

Tabatha Claytor 36:16

I think there's so much going on in the world.

Ken Claytor 36:21

Yeah.

Tabatha Claytor 36:22

Wars, there's you know, in the workplace, there's so much that can be against us that we face in a day.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Yeah.

Tabatha Claytor 36:30

Um I'm not going to let one of those things be my husband. Yeah. You know, I'm not gonna let one of those things to be my spouse. And so when we can look at it to know that, okay, it's it's me and you against the world. It's really me, you and God, right? But it's it's us against the world. It's like, no, we're going to stay together, we're gonna stand together, we're gonna fight together. I'm gonna fight for you. Yeah, I'm not gonna be offended against you and fighting against you, yeah, which is fighting against myself. Yeah, it just none of it makes sense.

Prayer To Renounce Offense

Ken Claytor 36:57

No, it's not advantageous to the plan that we have for our lives. Can you do me a favor? Can you just look in the camera and just kind of pray over the people who might be carrying offense and just prophesy and just ask God to uproot it?

Tabatha Claytor 37:12

Yeah. So if you're carrying offense, why don't you just go ahead and take a moment, even if you're driving, just keep your eyes open, but take a moment and ask God, where is it that I have an offense? Some of you know exactly where your offense is, but you have to invite the Holy Spirit in. So right now, in Jesus' name, Father, I pray that every person who is holding up those offenses, I pray that they just take it and kind of just cast it to you in the name of Jesus, that they will break up with those offenses. They've been holding those offenses close to their heart because it's been hurt and they have been wronged and it wasn't fair. But I thank you, Lord, that you can take that burden of offense and you can do away with it because they can give it to you, Lord. I pray that you replace that offense with strength, that you replace that offense with love in Jesus' name. And Lord, I pray that this will be the new beginning for them, that as they give you these offenses, they will begin to look at their spouse. They will begin to look at other people through a new lens, a new perspective through that lens of love in Jesus' name.

Ken Claytor 38:19

And I would also say, um, let's just take a moment to renounce and repent of offense. You know, one of the most powerful things you can do is to use the authority that God's given you to renounce, which means break up with it. And so just repeat this after me if it bears witness with you. Say, I renounce the spirit of offense and say, Lord, I repent of harboring offense. And from this day forward, I will not carry offense. From this day forward, I will forgive. And so I forgive, I release, um, I choose to love my spouse in Jesus' name. And uh the Lord showed me um someone whose name's Sheila. Um, I saw you like maybe in an abusive situation. And of course, if you're still in that situation, my encouragement to you would be to get to a safe place. Um, but I don't know why the Lord is showing me that, other than um, He's with you and fighting your battles. Uh, number two, I would say I know that it's probably created this offense that's in your heart as well. And um, I believe as you even renounce offense, and you even though there's things that's been being done to you that is completely wrong and it is offendable, I don't want that to get in your heart because we don't want that to go into future relationships and what God I just feel like the hand of the Lord is upon you. And even though it feels like you're in a really, really bad place, I feel like God is protecting and prospering and he's gonna bring you into um a season of restoration and like recompense. And so we pray that over you. And I I also feel like um God is healing someone as you begin to let go of unforgiveness and offense. Um, I believe those of you all who've been having back pain and neck pain. Um, you know, even ulcers be healed right now in Jesus' name. Uh where there has been pain in the back, we command swelling to leave right now in Jesus' name. I believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is there to touch you right now. And if that's you and uh you're being healed, please let us know. Please reach out to us. Um, I even see someone's been dealing with migraine headaches. I believe that God is healing uh migraine headaches. You've been just dealing with migraine headaches, I believe. In the mighty name of Jesus, we command those headaches to leave you, and we call you healed right now in Jesus' name. And so if that's for you, please let us know. And so that's so good.

Tabatha Claytor 40:35

While you were talking and just saying those prayers and declarations, um, I just kind of see chains breaking. I see prison doors, prison doors being opened. So there's a lot of freedom that's happening right now, and I praise God for it.

Ken Claytor 40:48

Yeah, and we declare in Jesus' name that the wall of offense is being broken down. The bricks that you've put up in your relationship now, not only are they coming down brick by brick, there's like a sledgehammer that's going through it.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Amen.

Share The Episode And Next Steps

Ken Claytor 40:59

And I just declare that your best days are still out in front of you. All right, well, we're out of time for today, guys. We hope that you enjoyed today. This is a much, a much needed, shareable podcast. Make sure you just take a moment, jump over to the share button, send this to other people who might need this podcast, leave us a comment, let us know what you got out of today. If you were healed, if you forgave, if you broke down the walls of offense, the best thing you could do is just let us know. All right. Um, if you jump over to Ken and Tabitha.com, we have marriage boot camps, we have books, we have devotionals, we got a lot of things that we think will bring value to your life. And if you're ever in Florida, come worship with us at a live church. We have a conference that people love to come to. It's called a live conference. It happens the first week of November. Tickets are on sale right now, space is limited, but I'm telling you, you'll go to another level in God. So we hope to see you here in November. And so until next week, we love you guys. We're here for you, we're praying for you, and we'll see you next Thursday. Peace.