Love keeps no record of wrongs.
I Corinthians 13:5
“For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
Jeremiah 31:34
“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
Isaiah 65:17
“The memory of evil will serve as a shield against evil”
Elie Wiesel
Bottom Line: Memory should help love, not hinder it.
Memory is not as objective as we think it is.
The way we catalogue memories either reinforces or challenges the stories we tell about our lives and relationships.
We have influence over how we remember things.
The way we remember shapes how we act in the present.
Keeping a record means writing someone off for their mistakes.
Remembering rightly means living in reality and dealing with hurts as they come up.
Keeping a record means holding on to bitterness and unforgiveness.
Remembering rightly means allowing God to heal you so you can begin acting in love instead of reacting out of woundedness.
Keeping a Record means holding onto those things that happen to use as ammunition.
Remembering rightly means allowing memory to protect you and to inform boundaries that free you to love more fully.
“Keeping no record of wrongs” is the end result of a process.
Action Steps
Prayer
- What things do you have a hard time letting go? Why do you think that is?
- Where do you find yourself holding onto bitterness and unforgiveness?
- Is there anyone in your life you need to put up boundaries with so that you can love more fully?
Practice
- Clear the air with someone
- Take a step with Jesus towards releasing bitterness and unforgiveness
- Listen to the Praxis series on forgiveness (link?)
“Ultimately forgetting the suffering is better than remembering it, because wholeness is better than brokenness, the communion of love better than the distance of suspicion, harmony better than disharmony…
Though we would be unwise to drop the shield of memory from our hands before the dawn of the new age, we may be able to move it cautiously to the side by opening our arms to embrace the other, even the former enemy”
Miroslav Volf
