A Marital Reformation?

A Marital Reformation?

Sensible people control their temper; they earn respect by overlooking wrongs.

Proverbs 19:11

It was on this day, October 31 in 1518, that Martin Luther, the German priest and scholar, posted the Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church (which served as a kind of bulletin board). His intent was to spur debate. Little did he know that his questioning of certain church practices would lead to the Protestant Reformation that would change the state of the church forever.

Luther could have just as easily begun a movement in modern-day marriages with this buried quote: “It is impossible to keep peace between man and woman in family life if they do not condone and overlook each other’s faults but watch everything to the smallest point. For who does not at times offend?”

It’s difficult to improve on that. Luther could not have spoken a truer word. Can you imagine what would happen in your home if both of you suddenly began overlooking petty problems? if you each decided to bypass each opportunity to criticize? What would happen if suddenly tomorrow this grace occurred in every home? It would be nothing short of a revolution—perhaps the greatest social revolution ever!

Love must be blind—at least to petty offenses—if it is to grow. We all supply plenty of opportunities for our spouse to find fault. That goes with the territory of being human. The trick is learning how to shut our eyes when we encounter each other’s minor faults. How do you actually put this biblical principle into practice? Here are a couple of suggestions.

First, take inventory on what you especially appreciate about your spouse. Why? Because doing so recalibrates your mind-set. In one of the classes we teach, we sometimes have our students take ten seconds to notice everything in the room that’s green. Suddenly, they see green everywhere. Why? They invoked a green mind-set. They couldn’t help but see it because that’s all they were looking for. The same is true in marriage. When we invoke a positive mind-set for our partner, we begin to see so many more things they do well. A positive mind-set can’t help but engender appreciation and positivity.

Second, own up to your own faults. Is there some log in your eye that you have missed in the fixation on the speck in your spouse’s eye (Matthew 7:3-5)? Consider what it would be like to be married to you. What about you makes you challenging to live with? The more you recognize the difficulties you bring to the table, the more acceptance you will have of your partner’s foibles.

Try these two steps today, and start your own marital reformation.

It is the glory of a man to overlook an offense; it is a foolish and prideful man who feels every little offense is worthy of confrontation.

—Tim Challies