Put the Ball Down

Yesterday I sat with a friend who is carrying something heavy. There's a relationship in his life with someone he deeply loves, and they've been stuck in the same pattern for years. They care deeply about each other. They'd go to the wall for each other. But they can't seem to get along for very long.

It always starts small. One says something, or does something, and the other hears it wrong or takes offense. Then the volley begins. A sharp word goes over the net, and a sharper one comes back. Old faults get dragged out. Frustration turns to anger. Both of them are super smart. Both are endlessly competitive. Both are passionate. And both are absolutely convinced they're right.

I didn't have a neat answer for him. Honestly, I've played in that match myself more times than I'd like to admit. Most of us have. Which brings me to a story about someone who had every right to keep the score.

In 1947, Corrie ten Boom was speaking at a church in Munich. She had survived Ravensbrück, the Nazi camp where her sister Betsie died. After her talk on God's forgiveness, a man came forward with his hand out. She recognized him instantly. He had been one of the guards at the Nazi camp responsible for torturing his captives. He told her he had since become a Christian, that he knew God had forgiven him, but he wanted to hear it from her.

Corrie later wrote that she stood there with her hand frozen at her side. She had just preached forgiveness, and she couldn't do it. So she prayed a simple, honest prayer, essentially: Jesus, I can't. Give me your forgiveness. And she lifted her hand and took his. She described a warmth that ran down her arm, and in that moment she forgave him from the heart. Her conclusion was that forgiveness is first an act of the will, not a feeling. You choose it, and God brings the heart along.

Most of us will never face anything close to that. Our battles are smaller and closer to home. But they cost us more than we realize, because of what we lose when we stay at war.

In Psalm 133, David goes on to paint two pictures. Harmony, he says, is like the anointing oil poured over Aaron's head, so abundant it runs down his beard and onto his robe. And it's like the dew of Mount Hermon falling on the mountains of Zion. Hermon sits far to the north, snowcapped and well watered. Zion sits in dry country to the south. Dew from Hermon reaching Zion is a picture of refreshment showing up where you'd least expect it. Then David closes with this: it's there, in that place of unity, that the Lord pronounces His blessing.

Harmony isn't just pleasant. It's where blessing lives.

But harmony between two imperfect people doesn't happen by accident. Paul told the church at Colossae to make allowance for each other's faults, which is another way of saying: expect them. Build room into the relationship for the other person to be human.

All good relationships are sustained by forgiveness. Not started by it. Sustained by it. Forgiveness is the oil and the dew. It's what keeps a relationship from drying out. That's true in three distinct places:

With others. Being right is a lousy trophy. You can win every point and lose the match. Somebody has to stop returning serve. Forgiveness doesn't mean pretending it didn't hurt or that it doesn't matter. It means refusing to keep score. Harmony is only possible between two people who have both decided the relationship matters more than the last word.

With God. This one we don't talk about enough. Sometimes we're angry at God. A prayer goes unanswered. A diagnosis comes back wrong. A loss doesn't make sense. God has done nothing that needs forgiving, but we can still carry a grievance against Him that slowly hardens our hearts. Job had his complaints. Jonah sulked under a withered plant. David filled half the Psalms with honest questions. God can handle our anger. What He invites us to do is release it, to stop holding Him to our understanding and trust His character. Letting go of that grudge isn't pardoning God. It's surrendering to Him, and it's the only way back to harmony with Him.

With ourselves. Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is the one in the mirror. Peter knew that. He warmed his hands at a charcoal fire the night he denied Jesus three times. After the resurrection, Jesus met him on the shore, at another charcoal fire, and asked him three times, "Do you love me?" One question for every denial. Jesus didn't pretend it hadn't happened. He restored him right in the middle of it. If the Son of God has forgiven you, what right do you have to keep condemning yourself? Refusing to forgive yourself isn't humility. It's saying the cross wasn't quite enough. And you can't live in harmony with anyone else while you're at war with yourself.

My friend's relationship won't be fixed in a day. My own prickly relationships won't either. But every relationship that lasts is held together by people who keep choosing, again and again, to put the ball down. To not return the volley.