Last week, Gretchen at YLCF shared about the memorable vows of a recent wedding. This was the line,
My heart is the graveyard for your faults and mistakes and by God’s grace I will always do my best to uplift and encourage you in your best.
The part that stuck with me is the imagery of “my heart is the graveyard for your faults and mistakes.” Those faults and mistakes, annoyances and frustrations are (or should be) dead, like the bodies buried in the graves they cannot be dug up and given new life. Isn’t that crazy! That’s how we’re supposed to respond to our husband’s* faults and mistakes.
They can’t be dug up, because even if we did bring up the past there’s no life there–or, at least that’s how it should be. But isn’t that a great reminder of just how completely we should forgive?
So many Scriptures come to mind, but in the end all come to this: we are to forgive to the same extent Christ forgave us. Humbling, isn’t it? We cannot rightfully hold something against another…why? Because on the cross Christ held nothing against us. He bore it all. Everything.
When I think of that forgiving because so much easier. Not because I’m some super-Christian or am just so disciplined, but because I’ve come to know two things
- I have been forgiven much.
- Because I have been forgiven much, I can hold nothing against another person.
Every annoyance, injustice, fault, or mistake dies at the cross of Jesus. And if I do not forgive, then I do not know how greatly I have been forgiven. I am clueless and haughty, setting myself higher than the forgiveness of God.
In essence, this attitude says God’s forgiveness is not enough. God’s grace doesn’t extend as far as this person or this fault. When, not so much as if, my attitude sways in this direction I have lost sight of the wretchedness of my own condition apart from God and don’t know the weighty gift that the grace of God is.
In Carolyn Mahaney’s Feminine Appeal, she had this to say about responding to our husbands faults:
When we see our husbands as sinners like ourselves–sinners in need of God’s grace and mercy–it strips away any intolerant, critical, or demanding attitude we may be tempted to have. Every husband has areas where he needs to change and grow, but so do we!
This doesn’t mean we excuse or ignore our husbands’ sins. But attentiveness to our own sin will create an attitude of humility that is essential when we need to correct our husbands. (emphasis mine)
Isn’t it really all about growing in grace?
*Really, we should respond this way to anyone’s faults and mistakes.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 0 comments… add one now }