Is your love forgetful? Many wives are already elbowing their husband as they read the title! They are thinking about all the times he has forgotten something important to her! Maybe it was an anniversary, a birthday, or an important item at the store he said he would purchase. Truth but told many of us are guilty of forgetful love!
Would you believe it if I told you the Bible teaches us to have a forgetful love? Paul prescribes a forgetful love when he says that love “keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Cor. 13:5). The original greek word here is where we get our English were log from today. As in keeping a record or log of events. It was used by a ship’s captain to keep a record of his travels and the events of the ship. Other translations render this phrase “thinks no evil” or “not resentful.” The idea is that love forgets past evils and wrongs.
Love must NOT be eager to find, remember, and recount faults (Mat. 7:2). Love refuses to make mental lists of wrongs and review them frequently in our minds. Aren’t we thankful that God forgets our wrongs when he forgives us (Heb. 8:12, Mic. 7:19)? This type of love means that we must not constantly reach back into the past in order to strengthen an argument in the present (Ps. 32:1-2).
Paul isn’t teaching us to be foolish when it comes to the abuses which we may be undergoing. In fact, list keeping in our minds can actually prevent us from dealing with offenses and problems properly (Eph. 4:26; Mat. 18:15-18). But he is teaching us what God expects and prescribes for a healthy relationship. The Bible regularly redirects us from list keeping to loving more! We are to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph. 4:32).
Do you have a forgetful love or do you keep an ongoing record of wrongs in your mind that justifies your attitudes and actions? Choose to stop list keeping and start loving more.
