Jimbo's Jots

Next summer (2020), the summer Olympics will come around. I love watching the Olympics. I find myself watching things that I would never watch normally – and I would guess you do to.

One of the events in track and field that is interesting to watch is the long jump. You watch in anticipation as the competitor gains speed, running so they can jump at the right time. You will also notice they fall forward, not backward. The momentum of the running and the jump SHOULD take them forward. If they fall backward, the distance is measured at that point. So they always try to fall forward.

In his chapter on forgiveness, Dr. Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage, says that marriage and forgiveness is essentially that. It’s a falling forward!

Here’s the deal: we’re all selfish sinners!! Even in marriage, we fail! Sometimes we fail badly!! I’m not talking about forgetting a birthday or anniversary. It’s the “digs at your spouse when your angry”; the “bringing the past ledger of wrongs”; it’s “the acts of retaliation”. What I have found in working with couples is one or both partners feel they have to be right and win the argument. In most cases, as Dr. Paul Tripp says in his video series, “What Did You Expect?”, it’s not that our spouse broke God’s law and we’re offended and hurt. It’s that they have broken OUR law and we’re hurt and offended.

Another sacred teaching we learn in marriage then is forgiveness. “Forgiveness is an act of self-defense, a tourniquet that stops the fatal bleeding of resentment.” (Sacred Marriage, p. 161) Forgiving your spouse is a choice you make every day because every day your spouse sins. Asking for forgiveness is a choice you make every day because you sin.

Just like that long jump contestant wants to fall forward to achieve a better outcome, we can vault our marriages forward when we choose to forgive each other.

Be blessed and be a blessing!