This ingredient has the potential to be one of the most beneficial things to your marriage and yet, also, one of the most damaging. This is all about complete forgiveness.
We have all done some stupid things or said some absolutely foolish statements. I know I have! Usually we know that they are not an appropriate reaction but we do or say it anyways. The moment it is performed or spoken it cannot be taken back. It is out there as a testament to who we really are...selfish, rude, hateful, prideful, or any other damaging character flaws that you can think of.
This phrase in the KJV is "thinks no evil." When properly translated it comes across as more of an accounting term. For example, if you logically reason and balance you checkbook and it says you have $25, you have $25. It basically means a logical conclusion based on facts present.
This applies to love like this....
Yes, you were wronged. Yes, he hurt you. Yes, she did you wrong. No one disputes the pain that you have experienced or feel. It is legitimate and justified. You are not to blame for this outcome. It is your right to feel slighted, abused, mistreated, and maligned. You can track in your mind, as if in a ledger, the times and dates of certain offenses. You can look back and see that they are in debt to you for the wrongs committed against you. It is a logical conclusion to feel the way you feel because of what you have gone through or are going through. You have reconciled your love checkbook and your spouse is in the red.
But, love...
Love looks at the balance owed and graciously covers the debt. It not only corrects the ledger to reflect no wrong doing but destroys all evidence of the offenses. Love does not look the other way but rather gazes into the face of the one that is loved and readily forgives ALL of their transgressions. Love is not ignorant of the offense; it simply chooses not to keep record of it. The offense is written down but love blots out the ledger so that the offense is no longer visible or recognizable.
Isn't this the picture of what Christ has done for us? The love which He is carried our debt of sin to the cross so that we would be removed from it. His love for us has blotted out ALL of our transgressions.
Psalms 103:12 He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.
Isaiah 43:25 I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake,
and will not remember thy sins.
Isaiah 44:22 I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins:
return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.
Do you use your past as a weapon? Do you reach in and, subconsciously, take out one of your weapons in order to fight your spouse? These weapons can be very effective at winning the battle, but what are you really trying to do? Are you trying to fight, and eventually win, against your spouse? Aren't you supposed to be on the same team, not trying to WIN? If you are waging war against your spouse you will eventually lose the war and the damage will affect you more than your spouse. Your heart will be filled with the anger and pain of unforgiveness, so much so, that when they say sorry--you can't forgive them, as your heart has gotten hard.
The only reason that we save anything is for the ability to use it again in the future. Why do you save your past tax returns? Just in case you get audited. Why do file away past offenses? Just in case the fight turns really ugly and you need to regain the upper hand. Sound about right?
Think about it like this...we have two choices. We can either file the offenses away to use them as a defense mechanism later or we can ask the Lord to recycle them and then He can use them for an entirely different purpose. That is what God does; He is in the business of redeeming lost, broken, and otherwise destroyed people and circumstances!
The root question...will you choose to forgive fully?
Josh and Serena
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