Forgiveness Part II

My wife, Mary, and I enjoy marriage mentoring. Mentoring is where a couple meets with another couple and basically says, "This is what we do." Mentoring does not replace counseling, but it can be very good in communicating relationship skills, especially to young couples just starting out their lives together. After I talk about one mentoring program, I want to discuss the very important situation of where forgiveness seems to wear out because the displeasing behaviour continues.

One of the best mentoring programs is Marriage Savers. Mary, who is a program director with a non-profit, had a grant to bring a marriage mentoring program to South Carolina. We took Marriage Savers to small groups in 6 cities, and many of the churches and groups we trained are still mentoring young couples. I wish I could say that I trained; actually, I made some really great coffee, which I could go on about, but that's not our purpose. (Mary can really stretch a dollar - she did 6 cities where most programs did one.)

Mike and Harriet McManus are the Co-Founders of Marriage Savers, and brought their excellent training to our groups. Basically, the idea is to set up mentoring couples in churches, and to have pastors in a community agree that every couple seeking to be married will have a specified minimum amount of pre-marital counseling or mentoring. It has been thoroughly enjoyable for every mentoring couple I know, and it benefits the young couples involved. The results for Marriage Savers are phenomenal; there is a measurable impact on the divorce rate in many areas of our country where communities have embraced the program in big way.

If Mary and I are talking to a married couple who has some difficulty in their relationship, we practice with them keeping short accounts. That's agreeing with your adversary quickly, "in the way" as described in Jesus' illustration, the subject of a previous blog. We emphasize the pain of not resolving "in the way", and that pain is like a debtor's prison from which we don't emerge until the least cent (or most minuscule infraction) is dearly paid for.

We don't believe in couples coming to let counselors fix their spouses. They gather up all the infractions for the week, and lay them at the counselor's feet. The goal of mentoring is to get couples to talk to each other. They ask forgiveness for known offenses. Pretty soon, they do it before they meet with their mentoring couple.

But inevitably, couples who have relationship difficulties tire of this forgiveness. It is normal. We see it in the New Testament gospels, where Peter said to Jesus, "How many times should I forgive my brother--seven times?" To this, Jesus responded, "No, until seventy times seven." In other words, don't keep count. The important truth from this that applies to all couples, young and old, is that change in a partner won't come as quickly as we think it should. It may not come in a way that we can measure. But change will come.

The change comes when a person has other people who are committed to his success, who hold him (or her) accountable. That person is in a good church where there is an emphasis on change, such as is embodied in the verse in Paul's Letter to the Romans, chapter 12 (my paraphrase): "And don't conform to this contemporary culture, but let yourself be changed by restructuring the way you think--then you will discover your Creator's most beneficial will for your life, that which brings wholeness and purpose."

Counseling is great--I don't put it down. Counselors must deal with deep-seated issues, and walk people through the process of getting out of a communication breakdown that may seem hopeless. Our church in Charleston refers families to a really great counseling center, Low Country Biblical Counseling Center.

Mentoring involves education, coaching and sharing real life experiences with another couple who recognizes that the two of you are no different from them, that is, you are vulnerable to all the same pitfalls in relationships. Mentoring will strengthen both marriages and will help couples looking towards marriage get off to a great start. Plus they know at least one understanding couple they can go to when times are tough.

Forgiveness Part I

We've talked about going the extra mile, turning the other cheek, and agreeing with your adversary "in the way", all common relationship skills, and all part of what most people call practical Christian living. These principles work in the daily grind, and help maintain peace with those we care about most.

You can certainly practice these and reap the benefits without being a Christian. The underpinning of all of these, however, is our faith. Seeing tangible results from their application will inevitably increase our faith in God, and our increased faith will surely give us confidence in applying them when the stakes are higher, and especially where the results are not as predictable.

Forgiveness is an essential element of all three. And if you would indulge me, I'll tell you about a message that demonstrated forgiveness to my generation in the best way I believe possible.

Have you ever told your teenager, "What in the world possessed you to do what you did?" Well it probably wasn't as crazy as a stunt pulled by Louis Zaperini. I met Louis in the early '70s when I was working at a Navigator camp near Visalia, California. We hosted church groups, held small conferences, and did back packing in the High Sierras for teens and college students in the summer. The best conference I remember was with Louis Zamperini speaking to a packed house of middle schoolers about forgiveness, then going up to the Sierras for some snow skiing, where Louis demonstrated some stunts for the kids, stunts much safer than the one I am going to tell you about.

So what did Louis Zamperini do that was so wild? Holding the world record for the high school mile, Louis was able to compete on the U.S. team in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. He told me personally about climbing up on a perch in front of Hitler's Chancellory, jumping out, and grabbing hold of the huge German National flag. It wasn't political, he said; it was just a stunt. So when he was apprehended, Louis was able to convince the German authorities that it was only a prank. If you look up Louis Zamperini on Wikipedia, you see that in their account Hitler wanted personally to meet Louis after his run, although he finished eighth.

In World War II, Zamperini was a bombadier aboard an aircraft that was downed in the Pacific, and he spent 47 days adrift on a life boat until he was finally picked up by the Japanese. He was interned in a war camp, and after the war he was encouraged by Billy Graham to return to Japan as a missionary; on his return to Japan, he even spoke to some of the Japanese guards who remembered him and elected to hear his message.

So Louis Zamperini had a lot of credibility with the packed out room full of middle schoolers. He had credibility talking about forgiveness because he had forgiven the Japanese who imprisoned him during the war. Louis spoke from the scriptures, and there are a lot of scriptures on the subject of forgiveness. When I hear a sermon, I usually forget the commentary, and remember the scriptural points. But in Zamperini's case, I remember the lesson of his life, as I am sure all the young people did as well.

In part two of the topic of forgiveness, I plan to return to the important topic of forgiveness within marriage, and the resistance that comes to forgiveness when there are repeated offenses.

Communication Breakdown

Every marriage or other family relationship, friendship, and business partnership at one point or another will suffer a communication breakdown. It's the proverbial doghouse. We don't come out for a loooong time--things are tense, people are not talking, and resolving seems impossible.

The other party may seem to be nit picky, making us jump through hoops, not caring about resolving, and have a never-ending list of wrongs. Couples who experience this often may think they are in two separate worlds; often, they come to the conclusion that they have grown apart; they are not the same people who fell in love and got married.

I once asked a couple experiencing this to consider a biblical point: If Jesus is the Great Physician, why not accept his diagnosis?

The scripture I am introducing is where Jesus gives an illustration of a situation that results in a lawsuit. He says, "Make peace quickly with your adversary, or else, your adversary will deliver you to the judge, the judge to the jailer, and you will be thrown into prison. I am telling you the truth, you won't come out of that prison until you have paid the last cent." (my paraphrase, but you can read this yourself in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5.)

Now that prison sounds a little like our doghouse, doesn't it? Jesus is using the pain of financial distress and debtors' prison to describe the pain of not resolving issues while we are "in the way" with someone we care about. Paying the last "cent" describes how petty and endless the list of wrongs can be.

In the context of those times, your ox gores someone else's ox as you unload produce from your farm. You can settle there, on the spot, for the damages; or, you can deny liability, and hope your adversary won't drag you to court.

It is so much easier to resolve "in the way". It costs less, and when you are done, there is not this lingering fear that things are going to get much worse.

When we don't resolve quickly, things build up until there is a list of wrongs. Many are petty, and it is very difficult and painful to go down that list. Sometimes a counselor is helpful to get through the list, if you can find one committed to your marriage. How much better it is to resolve "in the way".

I discussed this principle with a young married engineer I worked with. He was studying the bible, but couldn't come to believe that his wife was an "adversary". He acknowledged that as he and his wife grew in their faith, their communication breakdowns were becoming less frequent and were not lasting as long. Most churches and counselors do teach couples to resolve matters quickly, and not to go to bed mad.

There are benefits to understanding this passage. Number one, we will be ever so vigilant because we understand that Jesus is using a very painful situation to describe the pain of not resolving in the way.

The second reason for applying the verse is that we are not likely to blame "drifting apart", or our partner for not being appreciative or considerate. We are more likely to say, "This pain is because we did not resolve the matter when we should have."

A third reason is that when confronted with this list, and with failures that seem all so petty, we will (I am speaking to the guys, here) MAN UP, and patiently go down that list, without whining about jumping through endless hoops.

If we realize that in a recent situation we did not resolve in the way, (my wife just reminded me of this need) then get back in the way with that spouse, co-worker, friend, business partner, or team-mate and resolve quickly. Ask forgiveness.

It always helps to have an accurate diagnosis; for a communication breakdown, Jesus seems to provide one. If you have an example of where this principle has helped you, please post a comment.