The Test of True Love

A few days ago we thought about love, and what it is. We spoke of love as a giving of self, not a getting of something. We spoke of love’s intimate relationship with trust. We spoke of growing in love, constantly moving forward, ever deeper in love. Even as we finished those thoughts though, something else was nagging at my mind. And I think God bugged me about it.

I watched a movie with some friends, a movie titled “Fireproof”. It was about a troubled marriage, headed for divorce. The man was a firefighter, and he somewhat reluctantly fought for his marriage. In describing why, he spoke a memorable line: “As every firefighter knows, you never leave your partner in a fire.” That same night I watched (ta-da) an episode of Little House on The Prairie. The episode was about a farming couple who were going to be divorced. Both movies had happy endings – and I GOT the point: that God wanted me – and you, to reflect a bit on that key test of love: Forgiveness.

We previously spoke of true love as something we choose to give. As illustrated by the movies I referenced, the hardest gift to give, in love, is forgiveness. It is certainly hard to forgive the big let downs: betrayals of your love and your trust, when someone or some THING claims the love of your beloved. Sometimes, however, a lack of forgiveness is built on little things, as a couple gets into the habit of hurting and being hurt – often over the silliest things. The Little House on the Prairie episode, in fact, ended with the couple in front of the divorce judge laughing uncontrollably at how silly their arguments had been. It was only when they could see the pettiness of their fights through the eyes of others that they could laugh them away, and forgive each other. But it wasn’t easy, and their love and trust of the third partner in the marriage made all the difference: God.

When you think of marriage as not a vow between two persons, but three, discussions about forgiveness become easier. It’s hard to ask God to take your side in not forgiving your partner. It’s hard to ask God say with you, what an evil person your spouse has become. It’s hard to ask God to agree with you that the vows all three of you made should be broken, that you all don’t love each other anymore. He tends not to agree. And the reason is back to some of the basics we discussed last time, WHY he chose to love, and how we should be choosing for the same reasons. And those reasons don’t change just because one of the partners fails. We’ve failed God so many times I’m sure we’ve lost count, and so has he.

One of the ideas which confuses our willingness to forgive is the act of saying “I’m sorry”. I’ve had many a person say to me: “They were wrong. I’ll forgive them when they say they are sorry and they ask me to forgive them, and not before! Isn’t that the example God gives us when he asks us to go to Confession – say you’re sorry and ask forgiveness, and only THEN does he forgive.” Not really. Confession speaks only to one party in a falling out, the one who should seek forgiveness. But the Gospel of Matthew speaks about both parties. In chapters 18 and 28 it says if you have offended someone, you should go to him to be reconciled, and if someone has offended you, YOU again should be the one to go and be reconciled with him. You seek forgiveness and reconciliation whether you were the offender or offendee (is that a word??). That’s what love does. It gives, even forgiveness, willingly, because it never forgets why we CHOSE to love the other person in the first place – they were worth it, it being all the pains and effort which may accompany our love commitment. Forgiveness of failures is part of that commitment.

God knows lots about breaking of trust and betrayal, and he gave us the ultimate example of forgiveness. When Adam and Eve chose some THING else over God in the Garden of Eden, how hurt God must have felt. They broke their love bond with God when they chose a THING over God. Many a spouse today feels a similar thing when their loved one chooses work, or money, or sex, or pornography over them. (Pornography! It’s not even a real thing!!) How hurt many people must feel, to have their love rejected for a thing. How hurt God felt. Surely no one on earth could offer any gift to God which would satisfactorily show how much they wanted and needed to be forgiven for so grave a sin, so grave a hurt – the rejecting of God’s love. And Adam and Eve never even said they were sorry!

Of course, God found the solution to forgiving us. Jesus was given as a gift to ask our forgiveness. An offended God was given the ultimate gift possible by man, a God was given as a gift to God. The greatest man who ever lived – a God -- willingly laid down his life for all men, and their sins, to say for mankind “We’re sorry”, to ask for forgiveness.

When we are offended deeply, what sort of gift do we seek to prove the sincerity of the one who broke our trust? How much “groveling” on their part is enough to renew our trust? And if we were the one who broke the love trust, how much do we seek to “grovel”?

Remember where we started: love is freely given. And the hardest thing to give to one we love is forgiveness. They shouldn’t have to “earn” our forgiveness; it’s not about our GETTING relief from our pains, love is always about our GIVING, even forgiveness. In Confession God willingly forgives the sincere penitent because he loves him. And that is the example he sets for us about forgiveness. When our spouse fails us, when our children fail us, when our friends fail us, when our pastor fails us. Forgive, even seventy times seven. Even if they fail to ask for our forgiveness, we let them know how much we were hurt by their betrayal, and we forgive them anyway. Because we love them.

Forgiveness is not easy. Look what Jesus had to do. Was Jesus’ death the ultimate form of “groveling” for God’s forgiveness? I don’t think so. When we choose to forgive someone who sins against us, we can tell them how much they have failed and hurt us, and then we can forgive them. And they’ll know WHY we forgave them, because we love them so much. God could have just forgiven Adam and Eve’s sin, but he could never really convey with simple words WHY he forgave them. It took the actions of Jesus to show the pain of God, and the tremendous love he had to be able to forgive us. We had to know that. Jesus showed us how much we should love God, and God showed us how much sin hurts him. And yet in his great hurt, he loved us enough to forgive.

When we think about that hurt, that love, that forgiveness in love, it DOES make most of our pains seem somewhat laughable. Look at the things which have made you angry recently, made you feel somewhat less loving to your spouse, your kids, or your friend. Come on, how big a thing was it really? Do they have to die on a cross before you’ll EVER forgive them? And they should do this why? Because you’re a god??

Perhaps you need to look in the mirror more often. No god there. Just little ol’ you. Definitely someone worthy of being loved, for sure, but also someone who is capable of loving enough to forgive. That part of love isn’t easy, but then neither is putting on enough makeup in the morning to make that face in the mirror beautiful. Forgiving someone we love is applying enough “make up” so their inner beauty comes through.