Matthew 11:4-6–And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see:  5  the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.  6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”
I truly believe that if you live long enough, there will be a time where you are offended, frustrated, distraught or angered by what God has permitted/done in your life.  Not because you don’t love Him, but because His ways are higher than our ways.  As well as our understanding “to know the end from the beginning” is what makes us mere mortals in the need to trust God and not ourselves…(Isaiah 55:9, Revelation 22:13)
That is the challenge of faith, do I trust God when I don’t understand, nor like what He is calling me to endure?  The idea of suffering being absent in the walk of faith is not a biblical idea, but a mind that is yearning for a fallen earth to be heaven, which thank God eventually will be!  But in order to endure the inevitable tough seasons of life, being offended by God can come, but the offense towards Him shouldn’t stay…
Being offended was something that Jesus knew John the Baptist was dealing with while in prison.  John had been faithful in paving the way for Jesus, and from the fruit of his labors, finds himself in prison about to be beheaded by an evil dictator.  Imagine the disappointment, justly wanting to be rewarded for his commitment by thinking he should be rescued from such a gruesome death!
But isn’t that how being offended towards God happens to us all at some point?  We have an idea of what should happen and when, many times with a hopeful cause to think that way!  But we prove to be leaning on our own understanding, though tough not to do in difficult times, yet it is where faith and a life committed to God’s will is proven.  The grace to find humility to surrender like a child, and deem God good and perfect, though I am hurt by it, is the first step to walking out of being offended by His will and escaping bitterness (Job 23:10, Luke 22:42).
In Jesus replying back to John with the works He was doing while in prison, implied that John’s life was a vessel to further the glory of God, and he did that faithfully.  The result of his life allowed for Jesus to fulfill what He came to do in the Kingdom.  Do you see your own life through that “prism” as a Christian?  If you don’t than the “utopia” of thinking that our life goes according to what we will always understand, will eventually leave us offended at His will.  Which sadly, is where many professing Christians find Jesus too offensive to trust and live for. (John 6:67-69, Hebrews 12:15-17)
In His Love, Ld