The Power of Forgiveness In Marriage

There is power in forgiving.

Forgiveness is a hard word for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. Wounds of unforgiveness and hurts can run very deep and feel very justified. 

But true forgiveness is crucial for healing and maintaining a healthy marriage. Forgiveness frees both individuals from the burden of resentment and bitterness and allows for genuine reconciliation.

Unforgiveness is probably one of the most destructive things that couples experience in their marriage. It is also one that is truly hard to put into action and must take great resolve to choose this path for healing. 

I go into depth with this in the course because this topic holds great power in helping to restore the worst marriages and one the enemy doesn’t want you to walk in because frankly, we all feel justified when someone does us wrong. We don’t naturally want to forgive. 

Wrongs in a marriage can be as wide as they are painful. From leaving the seat up all the time and dirty clothes on the floor to adultery. It feels justified to be right and unforgiving. But it doesn’t make it right. 

This lesson in the course comes with practical steps and a forgiveness session that I take you through to begin a process of letting go and forgiving. This session is one that is truly Holy Spirit led and He is the one doing the deep work. 

One of the reasons that makes forgiveness so difficult is that most people don’t really have a problem with the concept of forgiveness but when we are hurt and need to forgive, we just go to the justified place in our heart. We try to explain away the unforgiveness and other avoidance techniques.

To forgive means, to grant free pardon or remission of an offense or a debt to give up all claims. Well that just sounds difficult, doesn’t it? But not when you understand that Jesus paid the full price for our sins and when God forgives, He freely grants a pardon to us. So, forgiveness is more for you than it is for the other person.

Forgiving someone doesn’t mean that they were right in what they did or they get to get away with it. It means that you get to go free.

Some of us have fallen into the lie when we say I can’t forgive what we really mean is —I won’t forgive. When we do this, we carry the unforgiveness in our heart and we begin to sense a hindrance in our relationship with God. When you don’t forgive you move into judgment.

If you continue with the unforgiveness and judgment the next step will be bitterness in your life. That’s what makes it so dangerous. You can’t strike back, you can’t get even, no matter what another person has done to you. When you do your own heart will become hard and cold and love will become crushed and often destroyed in this atmosphere of bitterness. 

Forgiveness is an act of your will. It’s not a feeling and if you as a couple can get past that you can move on to a very healed place. You must align your will with God’s will, follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, and determine to forgive. Your feelings will eventually follow.

I go into more depth on the lesson in the course because this takes a lot of time to unpack than I can put in this short e-book. Another area forgiveness is sometimes you need to forgive yourself. We know what we’ve done in the booth, in the back, in the dark and sometimes it’s hard to forgive that things that we know we did, and we enjoyed it when we did it.

We felt good in our sin, and we felt justified in our sin. If this is you, you may feel a constant feeling of unworthiness and that is a sure sign that you must forgive yourself.

Together as a couple you cannot afford even small areas of unforgiveness in your marriage. Don’t allow the enemy to attempt to rebuild a wall of unforgiveness once you have forgiven in your marriage also. 

Sometimes when this topic comes up couples will say that they don’t feel there’s anything to forgive. They say there’s nothing between them a lot of times. This is really the word disappointment. How much disappointment is between you and your spouse that you need to forgive? It could be areas where children have disappointed you or other family members have disappointed you. All these areas of unforgiveness affect the marriage.

Finally, remember forgiveness is an act of the will not a feeling. Ask God to show you how he sees the other person in your life. Allow His compassion to come upon and you choose to do it in obedience. Take the hurt you received to the cross and exchange it for love and mercy of Jesus. 

If you are in need of marriage coaching please contact me. You will learn in the course how to bless the other person that you are forgiving. Forgive much and be loved much. When we have the power of God in our lives there is no obstacle to forgiveness.

Learn to forgive and have a blessed marriage today.