What your spouse, thinks, believes, feels, and comes to do (maybe divorce) doesn’t stand up or come even close to the plan that God has mapped out and is patiently working out and executing at this VERY MOMENT.

Even with all your fear, your worry, your complaining (“God You are not doing anything. I see NO movement. Things are getting worse.”) Even despite this, He still works.

I think back to 7 years of my conversations. And I am so glad I had it wrong. I am so glad that God didn’t listen to me and what I decided I wanted. I am so glad that God was louder in His voice and direction than my feelings, my family, my leaning on my own understanding. Bigger than what my husband, my family, our church was believing for. They felt we needed to divorce! I am so glad my God was bigger than all of that combined.

My husband wanted a divorce. My husband said …….I could go on and on and on and I mean fill this page up with a BOOK of every single thing that my husband said, felt, believed. Every hurtful thing that he did. I could share it all, but what does that really matter?

Honestly, I want you to think about this. What did it matter? He still came to do the very exact thing God told me He was going to do in 2009. “He will come to Me, repent, and I will restore your marriage.”

I don’t want to share all the things that happened because what happens when I do? It almost becomes a right of passage to give up. When Standers come to me and tell me they have had enough, they will write me a mini book of everything that has happened to them. This record of wrongs, this checklist becomes the foundation they stand upon as to why they just can’t go on anymore.

 

Love keeps no record of wrongs. 1 Cor. 13:5

 

There is a LOT of profound wisdom in this. We can’t prosper in our faith if we are keeping a record of wrongs. We can’t fully forgive if we are holding onto what we deem as a record of wrongs. You are the one that determines if it is something to record, and you are the one that determines if you can undo that action.

Some of those records we keep are not determined by us. Like adultery. God’s Word says it’s wrong, therefore it’s worthy to be recorded. BUT God’s Word says “love says, No. Don’t record it.” Some of us, find things that we feel are worthy to keep a record of, but God’s Word doesn’t. I found LOTS of things to put on my list of records when I was selfish, self-righteous, controlling, and contentious.

I am astounded how many LIES I had kept as recorded truths against my spouse, to give me the right of passage to treat him with contempt and disrespect. One of the biggest was how I felt about men, from a place of mistrust and fear. My husband was paying a price for a record of wrongs I had against someone that was not even his.

Standers use this record of wrongs, the very record they have been told NOT to keep, to come to the decision, “Because of the record, I am giving up.” Again, a record we are told NOT to reference!

VERY rarely have I encountered a reason that comes straight from God, about God, caring about God’s will above their own. Instead, I hear “This is what happened, God has given me a peace with my decision to move on.” Some will even say “He doesn’t want this for me. He wants me happy.” To that, I say, “He wants YOU happy, but for the rest of us, He doesn’t? He is ok with us suffering, but for you, He cares more about you being happy and released from this?”

What does God want from us? He wants us to come to a place where we release the record of wrongs out of love. He wants us to trust Him that we are not going to need to keep that record and refer back to it later. He wants us to desire HIS will for our lives, and not our own. And for those of you who keep the record of wrongs handy, that is going against God’s desire for you.

When you present your case to God, you are telling God. “I know what you are asking me to do, BUT I have a case against what you are asking. I have this record of wrongs that I am going to present as my case to tell You, God, that You are wrong. What You, God are asking me to do is wrong. My record of wrongs is my evidence that I have every right to argue with You.” THAT is why God says, that love must keep no record. WE can’t love someone and then argue that what they have done, are doing is the bases for us to do the UNLOVING thing.

 

This is deep, please take time to examine your heart and see if you are holding a record of wrongs. I have a test that I use. When you talk to someone, do you share with them what the spouse has done? Do you go over in your mind and create scenarios with different outcomes? If you think upon things of the past, do you get filled with anger, bitterness, pain, feelings of hopelessness, defeat, and the overwhelming feeling this is impossible? That is what a record of wrongs will do because that record will grow and grown and become HUGE, so huge it can alter your path.

Going to the Lord in prayer over something that has hurt you, asking God to help you heal, forgive, release, is not the same as keeping a record. It’s when we don’t want to do those things when we want to hold onto the offense, that it gets recorded into a ledger that God never wants us to keep.

Standing with you,
Sheila Hollinger