So Merge has started a Married couples Bible study recently and it is fantastic! Brooke Catchpole is leading it and it has been very exciting! We are reading through the book "Love and Respect" and it has been very eye opening! First of all it is all about how the woman's need is love and how the man's need is to feel respected! Good stuff and that comes from Ephesians 5:33. But the thing that I want to bring out in this blog is the statement that the author makes about something, because it is profound!
He says in regards to your spouse "Believe that the person you choose is good, and has only goodwill towards you!" Meaning, remember...they chose to marry you...they are not now out to get you! Sometimes people can say things and we can interpret them as a slam against us when really that is not their heart at all! They never meant to do something or say something to simply be evil towards us or to hurt us...they have good will towards us and we need to give them the benefit of the doubt!
This is such a good principle for marriage! However I also believe it is such a good principle for just people in general! Now...before I go further I would like to say...Does EVERYONE have good will towards us? HA no...but do most people?? Yes...Especially our family and inner group of friends. People will always be people and always be crazy and say or do things that make no sense and are hurtful. But from experience it is such a burden to carry thinking that everyone is out to get you...or that everything that anyone says is directed towards us! This stems (for me) from a root of insecurity and God has got to deal with it! We CAN let people love us...we CAN love people...are people always being real? NO but we are called to love! So I am going to try this new thing where I don't think everyone is out to get me...or think that everyone is talking about me.
Now I am not saying leave your discernment at the house lol but I'm saying that if someone DOES happen to have ill will towards us in their actions and words...then that is on them and not us! Let God deal with them and we have to love them!
**Short blog today but I feel like its a message that can cut to the core of who we are and how we think! I'm praying I get better at this (only with God's help) as well as any who read this!
2 comments:
1 Cor 13:7 says that love believes all things. I looked at a few commentaries, and they pretty much all say the same thing. Clearly, we aren't supposed to believe just anything whether it's true or false. Instead, this refers to thinking the best of others and not assuming that they have ill intent.
It goes even further because it also says that "love hopes all things." This is good stuff!
"When there is no place left for believing good of a person, then love comes in with its hope, where it could not work by its faith; and begins immediately to make allowances and excuses, as far as a good conscience can permit; and farther, anticipates the repentance of the transgressor, and his restoration to the good opinion of society and his place in the Church of God, from which he had fallen." -Clarke
"And when, in spite of inclination, it cannot believe well of others, it will yet hope well, and continue to hope as long as there is any ground for it. It will not presently conclude a case desperate, but wishes the amendment of the worst of men, and is very apt to hope for what it wishes." -Henry
Amen dude!! Love it!!
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