{"id":91,"date":"2007-12-25T14:22:08","date_gmt":"2007-12-25T18:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/2007\/12\/25\/keeping-a-record\/"},"modified":"2007-12-25T14:22:08","modified_gmt":"2007-12-25T18:22:08","slug":"keeping-a-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=91","title":{"rendered":"Keeping a Record"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?\u00c2\u00a0 But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared.<\/em> — Psalm 130:\u00c2\u00a03-4<\/p>\n

Love keeps no record of wrongs.<\/em> — I Corinthians 13:5<\/p>\n

Praise God that He doesn’t keep track of my sins, or my failings.\u00c2\u00a0 How easy it is to keep track of how many times other people do us wrong, rather than how many times they do good things.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a feeling that after someone does bad enough things, enough times, you are completely justified in cutting them out of your life.<\/p>\n

You might say, “You said such and such a terrible thing three times.<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0 I can never love you again.”<\/p>\n

What if we stood that on its head?\u00c2\u00a0 What if we kept a record of goods instead of a record of wrongs?\u00c2\u00a0 What if we kept track of kindnesses instead of offenses?<\/p>\n

I might say to my husband, “You told me you love me 3,473 times.\u00c2\u00a0 I can never hate you.”<\/p>\n

You stood by me and helped me through the birth of our sons\u00c2\u00a02 times.\u00c2\u00a0 I can never forget you.<\/p>\n

You asked me to marry you and shared your life and your income with me.\u00c2\u00a0 I can never despise you.<\/p>\n

You soothed me when I was sick and in pain 1,023 times.\u00c2\u00a0 I can never\u00c2\u00a0stop\u00c2\u00a0caring about\u00c2\u00a0you.<\/p>\n

You opened your heart to me 5,471 times.\u00c2\u00a0 I can never stop\u00c2\u00a0loving you.<\/p>\n

You love our boys and take good care of them.\u00c2\u00a0 I can never stop respecting you.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

My friend talks about a well of good will that her husband built up that couldn’t be emptied when he had an emotional affair.\u00c2\u00a0 The well was too deep.<\/p>\n

It’s our choice.\u00c2\u00a0 We can let the bad outweigh all the good in our minds.\u00c2\u00a0 Or we can decide to let the good outweigh any bad that might come along.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not like there isn’t a whole lot of good there to do the job.<\/p>\n

And funny thing, keeping a record of the good and thinking about that is a far, far happier and more peaceful result than obsessing over wrongs done.<\/p>\n

Praise God! \u00c2\u00a0He looks at the good He placed in\u00c2\u00a0us and never, ever gives us up as failures\u00c2\u00a0or hopeless cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?\u00c2\u00a0 But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared. — Psalm 130:\u00c2\u00a03-4 Love keeps no record of wrongs. — I Corinthians 13:5 Praise God that He doesn’t keep track of my sins, or my failings.\u00c2\u00a0 How easy it is to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,22,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotional-thoughts","category-love","category-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}