The Sunday Mail
Apostle Langton Kanyati
Matrimonial Hub
MANY marriages are gradually eroded and eventually destroyed because the individuals involved are unable to forgive.
When you continually bring up the hurtful past, you are punishing your spouse and erecting a cold wall between the two of you. Loving someone means being willing to run the risk of being hurt. Through hurt comes the opportunity for forgiveness and reconciliation.
When one has understood and experienced the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ, they will have the capacity to forgive. Apostle Paul speaks to us on this account in Colossians 3 v 13.
The best ways to discover what forgiveness is, is to consider what it is not. Forgiveness is not forgetting. Whatever has happened to us is stored in our memory. The remembrance will always be with us. However, there are two different ways of remembering. One is to recall the offence or hurt in such a way that it continues to affect us and our relationship with others. It continues to eat away and bother us so that the hurt remains.
Another way of remembering, however, simply says “Yes that happened but it no longer affects me. It’s a fact of history, yet has no emotional significance or effect. We are progressing onward, no hindrance and our relationship is not hurt by that event.”
The fact remains, but you do not allow yourself to be under its grip.
Bringing up the past
is not forgiveness
lt is not so easy to bring up past offences and hurt, but this is only destructive for the following reasons:
We cannot change it
It deprives you from giving your energy to the present and future
We become responsible for jeopardising the marriage
It denies your partner the opportunity to change for the better
By dwelling in the past wrongs, you place a continuing burden on your marriage. Understand that the desire and willingness to break loose of the past and move forward is an indication of maturity.
Pretending is
not forgiveness
You cannot ignore the fact that an event happened. What has been done is done and pretending ignorance of the event does not help the relationship. Wishing it never happened will not make it go away. Dealing with the issue(s) is the only way to bring closure. Lack of confrontation and reconciliation may encourage the other person to continue or repeat the same act or behaviour.
Demanding change before we forgive is not forgiveness. If you demand a change or proof of it first, you expose your own faithlessness and unwillingness to believe in your partner.
When your spouse comes and asks for forgiveness, it shows that in a sense, they have already changed. You need to trust that your partner has changed.
Mistrust can be a barrier to a joyful marriage. Often, you hear people say, “I’ll have to wait and see”, or “Give me time”.
Indeed, time is often involved because forgiveness is a process and often does not occur instantaneously. Sometimes, individuals have to work through their feelings. They don’t want to be hurt again, so they are cautious when it comes to trusting.
But this approach puts us in the role of a judge. As such, the other person’s change of heart has to be proved to us and maybe our criteria of proof is so subjective that they can never measure up.
True forgiveness is not self-seeking, it is self-giving. Where the enemy expects hatred and forgiveness, it gives love. It gives freedom where the enemy deserves punishment. It gives understanding where the enemy anticipates anger and revenge. Forgiveness refuses to seek its own advantage. It gives back to the other person his or her freedom and future.
Forgiveness is rare because it is hard. If your partner is to forgive you, you must give up defending yourself. It means not allowing the other person to pay. It repudiates revenge and does not demand its rights.
In other words, we can say that it involves suffering. Our greatest example of forgiveness is the cross of Jesus Christ. God chose the cross as the way of reconciliation, (Ephesians 4 v 32).
When forgiveness is lacking, a strange companion by the name bitterness creeps in. Bitterness is a poison to the person possessing it and to the relationship, (Ephesians 4 v 31). Bitterness means that we have the desire to get even, but getting even costs.
Most individuals are experiencing health challenges that are by-products of bitterness. Do not bitterness poison you. Forgive, forgive and forgive.
Forgiveness is not acceptance given on condition. It is given freely, out of keen awareness that the forgiver also has a need of constant forgiveness, daily.
It takes place when love accepts deliberately, the hurts of life and drops all charges against the other person. Forgiveness is accepting the other when both of you know he or she has done something unacceptable.
Forgiveness is smiling silent love to your partner when the justifications for keeping an insult or injury alive are on the tip of your tongue, yet you swallow them. Not because you have to or to keep the peace, but because you want to, to make peace.
Commit to change in order to make your marriage work again. Enjoy your marriage.
Apostle Kanyati is the founder and president of Zoe Life Changing Ministries and Grace Unlimited Interdenominational Ministries. Email feedback at [email protected]; WhatsApp: 0772 987 844 .
