“Rehearsing the past does nothing to alter or improve the future.”

A thought by Andy Stanley (2015-01-06) from his book, The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating (p. 91). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

What Andy is dealing with here is the last part of verse 5 in 1 Corinthians 13 (NLT) which says, “Love…keeps no record of being wronged.” He talking about people who are record keepers and he is saying that love doesn’t do that.

Does your spouse do that? Did you have a parent who did that? Do you do that? That isn’t love, that is a relationship killer and that is a power play. It’s not love.

Andy says, “Love chooses not to keep dousing the present with the past. Besides, it doesn’t do any good. It doesn’t move the relationship forward. If one of your parents was a record keeper, I suspect you gravitated relationally toward your other parent, didn’t you? Whose influence were you most open to? The filer’s or the forgiver’s? Who did you feel closest to? The filer or the forgetter? Funny how that works. Nobody gravitates toward humiliation. The path to influence is paved by acceptance, not truth.”

He continues, “A person can be exactly right and end up exactly alone. Filers can always justify their truth telling, but eventually they will truth the life right out of their most valued relationships. You don’t want to be reminded of your failures. Your love interest doesn’t want to be reminded either. So stop with all that.”

Now he adds, “Do behavioral dots need to be connected? Do patterns need to be examined? Sure. By request only. By a counselor. By a friend over coffee. But not by a spouse or significant other. Filing doesn’t foster love. Forgiving and pretending to forget are your best bets for sustained romance. I say pretending because, well because, there are some things we won’t ever forget. But there’s no point in bringing them up.”

That is very good stuff. In other words, don’t rehearse it, release it. Let God have it, let Him work on it.

So what is it that you need to forgive and pretend to forget?

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