Thursday 13th February
(In response to yesterday’s post ie THE WOMAN DIED, the following question was asked)
QUESTION.
Such forgiveness takes the grace of God, not that easy o.
At the same time, the man agreed without excuses, he was also remoseful which means he knows he’s guilty and ready to change.
Where the man is not remoseful and not ready to change, still bragging around telling people that what his wife did was wrong and he’s ready to take revenge, what can that woman do?
Please, I need advice.
ANSWER.
The most important fact which you should be aware of is that God expects you to forgive. It doesn’t really matter whether he is remorseful or not. The area where his remorse would matter is how deep the relationship goes after forgiveness.
In the case above, there was forgiveness and total restoration of the home because the two of them were ready for it. The restoration was total because the man was desirous of it and was not under the influence of external forces.
However, there are men who need prayers because they are not even aware that they are doing the wrong thing. There are women too who are in the same category. If your spouse is doing something wrong and doesn’t seem to understand it to be so, you may need to pray instead of fighting physically. There are a lot of fights which we erroneously fight physically but should really be fought on our knees.
Secondly, a man may not be remorseful in a situation in which the wife has driven him to the wall. At a stage he may become defiant, believing that he has nothing else to lose. An example of this situation is a man who went into adultery because of prolonged and consistent denial of sex from the wife. Forgiveness in a case like this may change the man for the better, viewing the forgiveness of the wife as a sign of good things to come.
Yet another reason why a man may be defiant is when he has made up his mind about the wife and doesn’t mind even if the matter results in divorce. Even in that situation, at least the wife should forgive to ensure that the burden of unforgiveness is not on her.
Someone illustrates unforgiveness as drinking poison and expecting the other person to die of the effect of the poison. In whichever case, it is better to forgive so that you would be in the will of God and secondly to rid yourself of the burden of unforgiveness.
Dr. Mike Oluniyi.
