What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ.
—2 Corinthians 2:10
What a horrible prison unforgiveness is! Men who hold things from the past over their wife's head are tyrants, ogres. I pray that none of you are doing so.
A big part of a relationship is forgiveness. And as the person responsible more for how well the relationship goes, we men need to be forgivers. How would you like to live every day, every moment thinking your wife might bring up something from your past? That's a pretty dark prison to serve a life sentence in.
But the prison isn't just holding your wife. If you are harboring unforgiveness, it's holding you, too. Remember that as we ask God to “forgive us our debts” each day, Jesus taught that we must ask for forgiveness based on how we forgive others. Ouch! And that just doesn't go for your wife. It means for anyone who has wronged you. But no one deserves and needs it more than the person who lives with your imperfections every day.
TODAY’S DARE
Whatever you haven’t forgiven in your wife, forgive it today. It may be something huge that she knows you have stuck in your craw. Or it may be something small you are hanging onto secretly. Let it go. Unforgiveness has been keeping you and your wife in prison too long. Say in your heart, “I choose to forgive.” And if she knows you are holding it, and if you have been a jerk about it in the past, you need to say it out loud to her as well. And then ask her to forgive you for being a jerk.
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