Conflict in marriage is inevitable. You are two sinners coming together! But this is one lesson which, if put into practice regularly and faithfully, will enable you to have a peaceful marriage.
Marriage Is Two Sinners Coming Together
The Bible says in Colossians 3:12-13, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
You know the main challenge about marriage is the fact that it is two sinners coming together for the rest of their lives. That is already a recipe for conflict and disaster. The reason is quite obvious, it’s that one person wants the other to go where they are going. And because they are pulling in different directions, fights begin.
Where Has All The Love Gone?
You only have to be a counsellor for a few years before you are saddled with a case where two people who got married with the words, ‘I love you’, are now having to be physically separated to avoid a punch up. Where has all the love gone?
There’s an accumulation of sins that are unforgiven.
Well, it’s pretty simple for us to think about it. Where the situation deteriorates to that level, often you find that even foul language begins to come in. Unprintable insults become the order of the day. Again, if you are a marriage counsellor you must be asking yourselves, ‘How can individuals reach such low levels?’ The point is, where there is an accumulation of sins that are unforgiven, in due season they build to such levels that individuals will injure themselves. They will injure one another.
The Sin That Broke The Camel’s Back
Remember the phrase in English that the last straw broke a camel’s back. The point there is that straw in itself is almost weightless. But it is the accumulation of straws that finally cause the back of a strong camel to break.
So, as I said, you cannot miss the fact that it is the accumulation of unforgiven sins, the unresolved issues, that finally bring a marriage tottering to the grave.
When people start saying, “You did this”, and the other one also says, “Yes, but you also did this and you also did this”, and so on and you’re going back years, just know, that this marriage is headed for the divorce courts.
The Key To A Peaceful Marriage
We need to learn to repent of our sins. We also need to learn to forgive the sins of our friends who are genuinely repentant. Because if you’re not doing that, all that will happen is when your friend commits another fault, you know what? You will go to the grave, exhume all the other wrongs that were buried there and it is trouble once again.
We need to learn to repent of our sins. We also need to learn to forgive the repentant.
So, the issue is that we must stop accumulating debt to one another. And we can only do so when a person genuinely repents of the wrong they do and the other genuinely forgives the wrong that the friend has done. That’s the key to a peaceful marriage. And that marriage then becomes an example to the children who are being brought up in the context of that home. Because the children are beginning to see that there is a genuine repentance and there is genuine forgiveness.
Learning By Example
In other words, it’s as we read in Colossians 3:12-13 that they are seeing in their parents compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another. And where there are complaints, there is forgiveness being extended. Even as the Lord Jesus Christ deliberately on the cross ensured he took away our sins so that there might be a place for forgiveness from God. Now he is providing, on the same platform, that there might be forgiveness from one another where there is genuine repentance and trusting that my God who forgave me surely wants me to extend the same forgiveness to my friend in this marriage.
My God who forgave me surely wants me to extend the same forgiveness to my friend in this marriage.
So, if you have been wronged and your spouse has apologised to you, learn to forgive and start on a fresh page. The dirty page must be torn out of the book and thrown away. Possibly even burnt. So that it is a really new beginning.
Peaceful Marriages are Founded On Forgiveness
Apologising is difficult. But forgiving is even more difficult and therefore on both sides of the marriage we really need to learn. So that we are extending grace to our friend. Instead of wanting something of perfection from your spouse. That will never do.
Remember, you married a sinner and you are a sinner too. Both of you need forgiveness to have a healthy relationship.
Remember, we are all fallen creatures. And so, we will never be perfect. But what we need is to work towards perfection. And it is that which lends itself to a peaceful marriage. So, remember again, you married a sinner and you are a sinner too. So both of you in your marriage need forgiveness to have a healthy relationship.
Are you forgiving each other?
