Sunday, November 29, 2009

Love Dare: Day 25


Today's dare chapter is entitled "Love Forgives." This is near and dear to my heart. Leading a marriage ministry with my husband, we see many marriages which can't be repaired because one participant or both is unwilling to practice forgiveness. Anger, bitterness and hurt imprison us when we choose to hold onto them. The initial feelings of hurt we felt dissipate and we are trapped with sinful feelings of bitterness and anger. We must choose to let this go and choose to move forward in forgiving and loving our spouse, even when they don't deserve this kindness. We only hurt ourselves when we act contrary to what God desires.

First and foremost we need to remember what God did for us. While we were enemies and while we were sinners, God DIED for us and suffered for OUR sins. Nothing our spouses do to us can match what God faced because of us. We are recipients of this grace, and yet we hold onto much lesser wrongs our spouse commits. We expect them to overlook grievances we do and then we punish them for as long as it takes until we feel they have paid for their wrong--but do we ever actually feel it was paid for? The answer is no. At some point we have to choose to forgive and give the justice to God. Otherwise, our lack of satisfaction at true justice eats us alive and piles bitterness upon bitterness.

The dare today is to think of ANYTHING you haven't forgiven in your spouse and to let it go. This might be something BIG--an affair, lies, emotional abuse. This might be something smaller--lack of attention, forgetting an important event, not living their role in the marriage. This might be something trivial--they accidentally hurt your feelings, they didn't say the right thing, or they left a task undone and you had to do it.

Whatever you haven't forgiven, pray God would release it from your heart, feel the relief of letting God deal with any wrongs, and choose to live your marital role in a godly manner.

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