Mercy

God’s mercy includes His kindness, patience, and forgiveness towards us. Think of this, He knows everything we think, say, and do, and yet His mercy extends to us even when we don’t deserve it. So if God is merciful to us, even in our darkest of situations, we must think of how we are merciful to our spouses. Or what about the question, why show mercy to your spouse when you know it’s only a matter of time before he sins against you again? Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23. God’s love never runs out on us, nor does His forgiveness or mercy, therefore we should never run out of any of these for our spouse. Having these God-given attitudes towards our spouse tell them, I know you are a sinner like me, I know that you will sin against me, just as I will sin against you, but I refuse to live constantly on the defense. Instead, I am going to live from a place of mercy that your sin can not take away from me. It is easier to forgive and show mercy when you are already expecting to give those things out. Often we struggle the most with unexpected things. So why do we not expect our spouse to sin against us? Jesus is the only sinless one and we won’t be His bride until the end of the age, so get used to having a sinful spouse, just as he has dealt with his sinful spouse (you).

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Colossians 3:12-13. Kindness is a posture of the heart that flows out of our actions, this behavior in marriage causes us to be others-focused instead of self-focused. Sometimes it is easier to know our triggers from our spouse so hopefully, our buttons don’t get pushed as frequently. Discuss with your spouse what patterns of sin are causing consistent problems and arguments in our marriage. Then, discuss biblical ways of dealing with these problems, i.e. what would Jesus do in this situation. So the next time your spouse sins against you, because you know he will, you have an entire arsenal of appropriate responses to the particular situation. Forbearance is another expression of mercy that can cover both big and little sins. Forbearance however does not mean ignoring or hiding the sin, it means we choose to overlook the sin and wipe the slate clean, offering the same kind of grace of forgiveness that God gives us. Jesus gives us a variety of options for how to deal with sinful people, so when all else fails, open your bible and ask Jesus how to handle the sin/forgiveness issue.