Nearly thirty days into marriage and I am reminded of just how much of a sinner I still am. Marriage adds compounded interest to the debt, since now it is not just myself who suffers, but another person. It has been a sweet time, though, with both of us learning to apologise quickly and figuring out what ways of speaking work best to communicate with someone whose brain doesn't work the same way ours does. One thing this process demands is humility. Learning to grit my teeth and stare full in the face of my own sin; not John's, not someone else's, not the extenuating circumstances which may have exacerbated it. Once this is done, repentance and apologies are the order of the day with an earnest appeal to God to help me grow and overcome the sin the next time I am tempted in that way.

       Through all of this I've had to start practicing is to stop saying "I'm sorry." 

        I don't mean the useless filler, "sorrys" for everything we think we might have done wrong(those ought to go too), but I mean when I've actually done wrong. When I've accidentally bulldozed John in a conversation, or when I have been unkind or shut him out for whatever silly reason.

        I was meeting with a friend a few months ago and we discussed the importance of actually taking responsibility for our own sin in an apology.

        You see, there's so much that the phrase "I'm sorry" has come to mean in today's world; especially here in the States. 

"I'm sorry you felt hurt by what I did/said..." Not an apology. 

"I'm sorry you misunderstood me..." Not an apology. 

"I'm sorry I said/did that..." (While thinking *I'm sorry because of the big explosion it caused and I'm saying that so that we can sweep it under the rug and forget about the whole mess*) Not an apology.

"I'm sorry [Insert consequence] happened because of what I did/said..." Also not an apology.

     We humans in our grand pride have so many little ways of skirting around the responsibility of our sin, of shifting the blame to someone or something else, or of justifying our actions even when they caused pain and hurt to those around us.

     Why do we do this? Why would we rather curb-stomp the people around us, and, ultimately, stick out our tongue at our Creator, rather than admit that we did wrong? 

      I think James puts it well: "What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures which wage war in your members? You lust and you do not have so you commit murder, you are envious and cannot obtain so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask; you ask and do not receive because you ask with the wrong motives, so you may spend it on your pleasures." 

     In short...the lusts of the flesh, our selfish pleasures which want what they want above all else, which yearn for one's own supremacy and one's own way in every circumstance, are the issue. Ultimately, pursuing our own pleasures will destroy us and our relationships with others as well as the Lord. This is Christ's meaning when he says, "Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." 

     The Christian life is one of paradoxes; the way down is the way up, stars shine brightest in the deepest wells, the valley is the greatest place of vision...giving up our perceived rights and freedoms will set us free indeed, and being willing to admit that we were wrong is what makes us right. In this context Paul's statement makes far more sense when he says "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." 

       The point of all this is that we have got to make sure that we do not get into the habit of giving meaningless apologies or apologies with caveats. In principle, saying "I'm sorry..." if you truly mean that you are sorry for the sin that you committed against a person and Almighty God, is not the problem, though I have tried to say "Please forgive me" instead. "Please forgive me" contains the clear implication that you are the one at fault..."I'm sorry," not so much. You can be sorry that someone bumped his head against a chandelier while you were five miles away and nothing whatsoever to do with it. 

        When I was younger, my mother wouldn't allow us to appologise with simply, "I'm sorry." We had to say, "I'm sorry, please forgive me." The latter was the harder thing to say. Of course, don't do what I did as a child which was to quickly learn that apologising in a sincere sounding manner made me look highly virtuous and so did it for the moral brownie points rather than from any sincere repentance in my heart.

        I am trying to now relearn the skill of being quick to apologise, not because I want to be done with the situation, or because I wish to appear morally upright and humble(another manifestation of pride), but because I truly understand the reality and heinous nature of my own sin. 

         James K. Smith's book, "You are what you love," urges the possibility of changing the heart by changing the habit. To an extent he is quite right and I have benefited greatly from his principles. In my case I am attempting to change my heart by changing my habits of speech. I want to stop saying "I'm sorry," and start saying, "Please forgive me," in the prayer that through it God will change my heart to be quicker to acknowledge my faults and, with true humility, esteem the good of others as more important than my own selfish pleasures. 

         Ultimately, it's important to remember that though our sin does have a horizontal effect on those around us, the ultimate crime is vertical. In the words of David, "Against Thee[Yaweh], and Thee only have I sinned and done what is evil in Thy sight." This is helpful to think about in the midst of our repentance and apology...even if we truly believe the person we are apologising to is equally at fault or is acting like a self-inflated prig and not only accepting our apology but reveling in it...the important thing is to remember that ultimately it is against the Lord that we have sinned and to Him that we owe the ultimate apology...by apologising to our fellow man, we are honouring our Creator against whom the brunt of our sin was committed.

      How comforting it is to know that the forgiveness of our heavenly Father is boundless and that He will not cease to love us even when we are being selfish, stubborn, and proud..."Though we are faithless, He remains faithful for He cannot deny Himself." How much easier it should be, knowing this, to humbly confess our fault and not hide or justify our transgression. 

       May all this be done to the glory of our Lord as He continues to sanctify us and mold us more into His image. For me, that means, as of now, to replace "I'm sorry" with, "Please forgive me."

     Until Next Time,

               ~ Christianna