Canceling Debts

This month we continue to look at Commitment 1: We will give ourselves to a regular lifestyle of confession and forgiveness. Last month we talked about confession. This month we will focus on forgiveness. There is perhaps no other ingredient as essential to a healthy marriage than forgiveness. Yet forgiveness is not always attractive. Forgiveness is difficult and costly. It will push you to the borders of your faith. It will tempt you to fear and doubt. But when forgiveness is granted and debts are cancelled, the return is much greater than the cost.

“Healthy marriages are healthy because the people
in those marriages find joy in canceling debts.”

We continue this month looking at Paul Tripp’s book “What Did You Expect?” These are primarily excerpts from his book. I strongly recommend reading his book to get the full benefit of his message. You can click on the book image to the right to purchase the book.

The Harvest of Unforgiveness

The bible is very clear: what you plant, you will harvest (Galatians 6:7). In a marriage, every day you harvest what you previously planted and you plant what you will someday harvest. Here are the marriage-damaging stages of the harvest of unforgiveness. Unfortunately, the marriages of many couples, are in some way, following this path.

1. Immaturity and Failure.

Not only are all people who get married sinners, but most enter their marriages quite young, naive, and immature. Typically, in the early years of marriage they do dumb, selfish, sinful things—things that neither one thought they would do. In their surprise and hurt, they give way to accusation, blame, judgement, and punishment rather than to honest confrontation, confession, and forgiveness. What they fail to realize is that not only are they responding poorly to the present moment, but they are beginning to set the direction of their marriage.

2. Falling into Comfortable Patterns.

Since confrontation, confession, and forgiveness are all hard work, it is easier to give way to lower urges. It is easier to walk away, to rehearse in your mind the other’s wrongs, to compile your list, to yell in anger, and to level a threat. So many couples fall into comfortable but relationally destructive patterns. The result is their affection weakens and the distance between them widens.

3. Establishing Defenses.

Rather than growing as the result of a healthy lifestyle of honesty and forgiveness, many couples learn early in their marriage to build up walls of defense against each other’s irritated accusations. This combination of self-righteousness (convincing ourselves that we are not the problem) and accusation (telling our spouse that they are the problem) prevents healthy relationship from forming.

4. Nurturing Dislike.

Because both husband and wife are allowing themselves to meditate on what is wrong about the other rather than celebrating the good God has done in and through them, their perspective becomes increasingly negative. Since human beings do not live by the facts of their experience but by their interpretation of the facts, this globally negative assessment becomes the interpretive lens through which they see their spouse.

5. Becoming Overwhelmed.

At some point, living with someone you don’t like very much and feeling the need to daily defend yourself against attacks becomes very exhausting and discouraging. You walk on eggshells, wondering when the next bomb will drop and shatter what little peace you have left.

6. Envy of Other Couples.

It’s hard when you live like this not to look over the fence or across the aisle and envy couples that seem to have everything you don’t. But comparing your marriage to the airbrushed public persona of another couple is always dangerous, but particularly destructive to a couple who are already not giving themselves much reason to continue

You may be thinking, “Wow. That is a bleak picture of marriage!”

Then I would ask you this: what is the journey you have taken as a couple? Do you have deeper respect, more tender affection, and greater appreciation than you had when you were first married? Are you more able to lovingly confront and graciously forgive? Has your friendship grown and your unity been solidified? Or has your marriage taken the opposite journey? Has your marriage rusted into brokenness by the daily rain drops of unforgiveness?

Then Why Don’t People Just Forgive?

We keep a record of wrongs because we are not motivated by what is best for our spouse but by what is expedient for ourselves. Here are some of the dark “benefits” of unforgiveness.

1. Debt is power. There is power in having something to hold over another’s head. In moments when we want our own way, we pull out some wrong against our spouse as our relational trump card.

2. Debt is identity. Holding onto our spouse’s sin, weakness, and failure makes us feel superior. It allows us to believe that we are more righteous and mature than our spouse. This pattern plays into the self-righteousness that is the struggle of every sinner.

3. Debt is entitlement. Because of all our spouse’s wrongs against us, they owe us. Carrying our spouse’s wrongs makes us feel deserving and therefore comfortable with being self-focused and demanding.

4. Debt is weaponry. The sins and failures that our spouse has done against us that we still carry around with us are like a loaded gun. When our spouse has hurt us in some way, it is very tempting to hurt them back by throwing back at them their own failures.

5. Debt puts us in God’s position. It is the one place that we must never be, but it is also a position that all of us have put ourselves in. It is not our job to make sure our spouse feels the appropriate amount of guilt for what they have done. It can be very tempting to attempt to take God’s place and make ourselves judge.

This is nasty stuff. It is a relational lifestyle driven by ugly selfishness. It is motivated by what we want, what we think we need, and by what we feel. It has nothing to do with a desire to please God with the way we live with our spouse.

It seems almost too obvious to say, but forgiveness is a much better way. It is the only way to live an intimate, long-term relationship with another sinner. The cost of forgiveness is great, but the harvest is a beautiful thing, so it’s important to understand what forgiveness is and does.

What is Forgiveness?

Here is what we need to understand: forgiveness is a vertical commitment that is followed by a horizontal transaction.

Vertical forgiveness clears your heart of the baggage of bitterness and condemnation so that you can face your spouse and their offense in a way that is kind, patient, loving, humble, and encouraging. While the first part of forgiveness is judicial, that is, entrusting the offense to God who alone is able to judge, the second part of forgiveness is relational. It is a transaction of grace between the person who has committed the offense and the person who has been offended. You cannot relationally forgive someone who has not asked for it. the biblical pattern is this: someone confesses, you forgive. Often, forgiveness is a process, not an event. This is a very summarized definition of forgiveness. I would encourage you to read Paul Tripp’s book to get a more complete explanation of all the issues regarding forgiveness.

What Forgiveness Requires

Forgiveness requires humility.

It is only when we really do believe that life is bigger than us, that there is something more important than our wants, needs, and feelings, and that we have been given life and breath for the purposes, plans, and praise of another, that we will be willing to forgive. Nobody gives grace better than someone who is convinced they need it as well.

Forgiveness also requires compassion.

Do you stand alongside one another in the worst of moments doing anything you can to relieve the burden of your spouse’s struggle with sin? You know what it is like to commit to what is right and end up doing what is wrong (see Romans 7). You forgive your spouse because, by God’s grace, you look at them through tender, rather than judgmental eyes.

Forgiveness requires trust.

Forgiveness is not so much an act of faith in your spouse as it is an act of faith in God. You do believe that there is blessing on the other side of the hard work of forgiveness. You do believe that when you fail and take up the offense once again that God will forgive you and give you the power to change. Because you trust in God, you are willing to forgive your spouse.

Forgiveness requires self-control.

If you are going to forgive your spouse for committing a sin against you, you must say no to yourself, exercising the self-control that only God is able to give you. You have to say no to the desire to lash out with angry words and actions of vengeance. You have to say no to the impulse to share your anger with a relative or friend. Giving way to these things is never a prelude to forgiveness.

Forgiveness requires sacrifice.

Forgiveness requires that we be willing to let go of our desire for safety and comfort and for the surface peace of silence, and, as an act of faith, that we endure what we do not want to face in order for the other to be helped and our relationship to be reconciled.

Forgiveness requires remembering.

Perhaps a lifestyle of unforgiveness is rooted in the sin of forgetfulness. We forget there is not a day in our lives that we do not need to be forgiven. We forget that we will never graduate from our need for grace. When you remember—when you carry with you a deep appreciation for the grace that you have been given—you’ll have a heart that is ready to forgive.

A Better Harvest

Forgiveness stimulates appreciation and affection.

When we forgive one another daily, we do not look at one another through the lens of our worst failures and biggest weaknesses. As we talk honestly, weep and pray, and repent and reconcile, our appreciation for one another grows and our affection deepens.

Forgiveness produces patience.

AS we respond God’s way in a daily lifestyle of confession and forgiveness, we begin to experience things we never thought we would see in our marriage. We begin to see bad patterns break, we begin to see one another change, and we begin to see love that had grown cold become new and vibrant again. We no longer take matters into our own hands in the panic of hurt and retribution. We patiently follow God’s commit-confront-confess-forgive plan.

Forgiveness is the fertile soil in which unity in marriage grows.

When you are living every day in the confession and forgiveness pattern, you are forsaking your way for a better way. Forgiveness puts you on the same page with each other. You no longer try to build your own little marriage kingdom. You now, together, live for God’s kingdom. You now live with the same expectations and rules. You now experience unity like never before, because forgiveness has liberated you for a higher purpose and a better daily plan.

Next month we begin looking at Commitment 2: We will make growth and change our daily agenda.

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Paul David Tripp is the president of Paul Tripp Ministries, a nonprofit organization, whose mission statement is “Connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life.” This mission leads Paul to weekly speaking engagements around the world. In addition to being a gifted communicator Paul is the Executive Director of the Center for Pastoral Life and Care in Fort Worth, Texas, and has taught at respected institutions worldwide. Paul has written twelve books on Christian Living that are read and distributed internationally, including Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands; War of Words; Broken Down House; and Crossway’s Whiter Than Snow. Get more information or purchase the book “What Did You Expect?” He has been married for many years to Luella and they have four grown children. For more information and resources visit paultrippministries.org.